DON'T PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM

The Good German

Steven Soderbergh likes to play with movies. With Ocean’s Eleven and its wildly experimental follow-up, the director pinned down virtually every vital element of the heist genre and stirred the grand concoction into slyly self-aware entertainment. In The Good German, Soderbergh uses darker material, and no less homage, but it is not as successful. Although not himself a mad scientist, Soderbergh’s method is always scientific. As a basic experiment with film form, the movie unfolds with droll commitment to the conventions of noir, with giddy boosts from evocative black-and-white photography and an overbearing orchestral score. The story borrows lazily from The Third Man and Casablanca, but that seems like a prerequisite for this exercise.

Read the rest of the review in the New York Press...