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I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Blistering performances.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's 1945 Berlin. The city is occupied by the Allies but Japan is still fighting on. American military correspondent Jake Geismer (George Clooney) arrives to cover the upcoming Potsdam peace conference. Tully (Tobey Maguire) is assigned to be his driver. Tully is happy to be working in the motor pool where he can deal in the black market. Lena (Cate Blanchett) is sleeping with him in the hopes of getting out of Germany. Tully gets beaten up by someone looking for Emil Brandt. Lena reveals that Emil is her presumed-dead husband. Jake is shocked to see Lena who was his stringer in pre-war Berlin. General Sikorsky and the Soviets are also looking for Emil. Tully does a deal and ends up dead with a belt filled with money in the Russian zone.This Steven Soderbergh film is done entirely in black and white. It references back to the noir espionage films. The first half is interesting although Tobey Maguire's death does throw it off. He was the protagonist until he's not. There is a few layers of mysteries to Lena but the final layer is less compelling than Soderbergh thinks it is. There are some interesting things happening in this movie but the second half stumbles in a muddle of less-than-compelling reveals.

Steven Soderbergh attempts to recapture 1945 Hollywood with the use of black and white film, studio sets, dramatic music, and camera techniques used back then in "The Good German," a 2006 film starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Jeff Bridges.In 1945, a journalist, Jake Geismer, arrives to cover the Potsdam conference. He's assigned a driver, Corporal Tully (Toby Maguire) who deals in the black market and is trying to get his girlfriend Lena (Blanchett), now a prostitute, out of Berlin. When he finds out that interested parties want to find Lena's husband, Emil Brandt, he claims to be able to turn him over for a price. Meanwhile, Lena tells Tully that Emil is dead. It doesn't matter to Tully - by the time anyone realizes he really doesn't have him, they'll be in London with lots of money.It turns out that Jake, who lived in Berlin previously, knows Lena and in fact was going to try to find her. It doesn't take him long to figure out that he was assigned Tully on purpose, and the Americans want something from Lena. He gets different stories, but which is the truth? That he was secretary to Franz Bettmann (based on German scientist Arthur Rudolph), whom the Americans are taking under their protection in order to have him work for their rocket program, and Bettmann wants him along? Or is it that he has paperwork they want to get their hands on? Lena isn't being totally honest with Jake, and she wasn't honest with Tully. But she's very honest about what she wants: to get out of Berlin...without her husband.Actually not a bad film that didn't make any money. Soderbergh pays tribute to Casablanca, particularly at the end of the film, and the novel by Joseph Kanon contains elements of The Third Man and Casablanca.I liked the black and white and the moody lighting and camera-work, all of which were done the way they were in 1945. We're so used to seeing old films in black and white, that it's almost as if history is in black and white and easier to buy when it's filmed that way. Crazy but true.Cate Blanchett turns in another excellent performance as Lena, a complicated woman with plenty to hide, but who is a survivor in every sense of the word. George Clooney to me was Tyrone Power incarnate, and he does a good job as a confused man who can't tell the players without a scorecard and can't trust anyone.As for the title, "The Good German" - just who is the good German? Lena refers to her husband as "a good German" because he wants to tell what he knows and restore Germany to the way it was before Hitler. Or is Bettmann the good German because he's useful to the U.S.? And what about the fact that the U.S. harbored scientists and other useful people who were in fact war criminals? It seems like a lot of people have secrets.All in all, while not entirely successful, a very interesting step back, telling an old-fashioned story in an old-fashioned way.

A gumshoe story set in a desolate, immediate post-war Berlin rather than the more usual sunny and prosperous L.A. From the first frame the film mimics the look-and-feel of a 1940's movie. After Tully (Tobey Maguire) picks up Jake Geismer (George Clooney) at Berlin Airport a wipe signals the transition to the next scene driving through the bomb-shattered streets of Berlin. CGI makes anything look real. So the obvious choice to dispense with green- screening in favour of a projected backdrop of grainy film must be deliberate. All of which gives an ambiance of a 1940's movie, besides a sense of time and place. Some scenes, however, don't observe the sensitivities of the 1940 – anal sex most notably. Being a detective story the plot line is inevitably murky and enigmatic. Coupling this with a love triangle makes the plot line more complex still. Yet, it remains sufficiently comprehensible to be intriguing rather than baffling. That said, it's no lazy watch, you need to pay attention and make mental note of what's happening. Performances are good all round. Tobey Maguire's portrayal of Tully, the baby-faced GI who knows everything, is polished and initially stands out the most because he plays such a brash character compared to the rest of the cast. George Clooney comes over as world-weary and worldly wise – a sharp contrast to Tully. Except when Geismer stumbles across Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett) the old flame he's been looking for. The best line in the film is spoken by an extra. Geismer is watching two youths at the water's edge playing with a model boat. The unnamed officer walks up from behind and comments, 'kids, two months ago they were shooting at us.' This sort of thing throughout sustains the film's sense of time and place. The Good German is a nice piece of teamwork that pulls together the screenplay, cinematography, acting, et al to make a very watchable film.

I was surely not thrilled in the movie by the story, by the acting, and certainly by the flow of the events. It seemed to me like a remake of The Third Man where the suspense was at a much higher level. Most of what happens there happens here as well without any surprise. I cannot even imagine this not being evident to the director. Maybe George Clooney factor was here due to his all movie long glances. He looks like he forgot the line he was supposed to say and the way long mysticism trying to be created by Blanchet. Anyway I was expecting something better. Just had to live through with it until the end. Could have made more of my Sunday evening by watching something else.