When we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeat it…

In theatres now, Nuremberg not only shines a light on the complications in seeking justice post WWII but also on the more authoritarian ideals that are taking hold in modern government today.

In the wake of the Second World War, The Allies, led by the unyielding chief prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon), have the task of ensuring the Nazi regime answers for the unveiled horrors of the Holocaust while a US Army psychiatrist (Rami Malek) is locked in a dramatic psychological duel with former Reichsmarschall Herman Göring (Russell Crowe).

While Nuremberg does follow in many of the tropes and beats that you’d expect from a war movie of this scale, it allows us to get into the psychological minutia of the men behind these horrible acts and the one’s tasked to find them out.

Writer/Director James Vanderbilt never gets enough credit for being a solid storyteller and filmmaker.  Following in the footsteps of his debut film Truth back in 2015, he gives us a slice of history that while not without a certain degree of varnish is at least trying to be an accurate depiction of the time at hand.  He knows how to keep a story moving and thankfully rather then follow the historical beats of the trial, he lets the story become about these two men; one who is the embodiment of evil and another who is hell bent to determine if he can quantify what makes someone “evil”.

This movie ultimately boils down to the battle of wills between Rami Malek as Dr Douglas Kelley the army psychologist brought into to ensure that all captured prisoners of war make trial but it all evolves into so much more.  Recognizing what Göring is Kelley begins down the rabbit hole of trying to befriend true evil in order to understand it.

Even though Malek does an admirable job, the work here is really put in by Russell Crowe for a myriad of different reasons.  It would have been so easy for Crowe to turn it up to 11 and chew the scenery but he actually doesn’t and in understanding the character as well as he does he walks it right up to the edge of it being a bad joke, which is exactly how Göring takes the whole process of a trial in the first place.  It’s a master portrayal of a true narcissist because the man is ultimately likeable but you still understand that you have to check your fingers every time you shake his hand.

All the set pieces work as they are meant to and some strong supporting work from Michael Shannon and Richard E Grant do very good work in selling the gravitas and importance of stamping out the ideas of authoritarianism across the globe.

Ultimately, Nuremberg is a solid and certainly above average piece of cinema and while it may not match the emotional gravitas of 1961’s Judgement at Nuremberg it all makes for a fascinating psychological portrait on how we can all lose ourselves in varying degrees of evil that come out during times of conflict.

The worst of us can still be caring family men, and the best of us can still do some pretty dastardly shit in the name of what is good and right.  Nuremberg reminds us that none of our worlds are truly black and white (or right and wrong) but rather a never ending sea of grey that we all have to navigate in order to survive.