“I’ll have, as you say, my day in court.”
The old Edmund Burke adage goes, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” At the end of World War II, after Adolf Hitler and many of his high command officers committed suicide, the United States and other allied countries wanted to put the mess of the war behind them. After millions of people lost their lives to a genocide of unspeakable proportions, several governments came together to put on an unprecedented trial that would challenge international law.
The Nuremberg Trials, as they would come to be known, involved prosecuting those who remained alive who perpetrated the acts that we know today as The Holocaust. Director James Vanderbilt’s (“Ready or Not”) newest film, “Nuremberg,” which premiered Sunday to thunderous applause at the Toronto International Film Festival, seeks to gain perspective from the point of view of the psychiatrist who helped bring justice to the world. The film is not the first recreation of these trials, nor do I suspect it will be the last, but its poignant view of manipulative relationships and an ensemble of men attempting to right a massive wrong gives this iteration of history much-needed strength.
Based on the novel “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist” by Jack El-Hai, “Nuremberg” tells the story of psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), who is tasked with interviewing Nazi prisoners to make sure they are mentally fit to stand trial. Though the rest of the world would prefer if their prison guards would simply just shoot them and be done with it, several national governments send their best lawyers to Nuremberg, Germany, to see that justice prevails. Kelley’s main subject, prisoner Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), is the highest-ranking Nazi left alive.
The film dives headfirst into a “Silence of the Lambs” cross-examination between Kelley and Göring, as the two match wits by trying to outsmart each other in a game of mental chess. Kelley is aided by an American translator, Sgt. Howie Triest (Leo Woodall), though he suspects Göring can understand English far more than he lets on. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon) is a lead prosecutor in the case and relies on Kelley’s instincts to persuade Göring to admit certain criminal activities and assist in how to cross-examine the Nazi leader best.
Vanderbilt’s film hinges on Göring being painted as a sinner and as a saint, equally. Kelley’s interactions with the heavy-set, seemingly pleasant government official make it seem like Göring is a good guy who got caught up in Hitler’s web of lies. But Crowe never wavers in taking Göring to heights unseen by the actor’s film career in quite some time, as he interprets the Nazi as a towering figure in a brilliant performance.
For his part, Malek holds his own in a role that transports the audience to mid-1940s Germany, a time of significant transformation still reeling with the heartbreak and confusion of a world in disarray. The character of Douglas Kelley is a unique one for a movie such as this, with its premise already adapted in the famous courtroom dramas like 1961’s “Judgment at Nuremberg” starring Spencer Tracy and the 2000 miniseries “Nuremberg” featuring Alec Baldwin as Jackson. But those projects don’t have what this new adaptation does, which is the perspective of time and the psychology of a madman hellbent on changing history’s understanding of what went on behind Hitler’s closed doors.
“Nuremberg” benefits not only from a terrifying performance from Crowe in a larger-than-life role like those that defined the early part of his career, but also from the ensemble of actors that makes it possible to doubt and also sympathize with the crimes at hand. Shannon and his co-counsel, Richard E. Grant, as British lawyer David Maxwell Fyfe, take the courtroom scenes to higher ground, tearing Göring down with carefully crafted monologues.
Possibly the best moment, and most relevant one, is when Woodall’s German-born Jewish translator utters, “Do you know why it happened here? Because people let it happen.” This is the crux of the film’s historical premise: If we don’t learn from our mistakes, history will repeat itself for us all.
Hermann Göring proclaims to Douglas Kelley at one point in the film that history will compare him to inspirational figures like Alexander the Great. Thankfully for Vanderbilt and the talented actors in “Nuremberg,” 80 years later, audiences still won’t sing that tune.
