
I had been given The Good German by Joseph Kanon as a gift. Now it isn’t the usual sort of book I read as my gifter knew but she thinks I should broaden my horizons. Being polite, I thought I’d give it 50 pages, work up a blurb for her so it would seem I’d finished it and toss it into the corner with other book gifts of dubious interest. Silly me. I got so hooked on it I didn’t put it down until I’d read it straight through. I was mesmerized and completely taken with the characters, setting and plot.
When I saw that it had been made into a movie, I wondered how much of the magic of the book could be transformed to the screen. Filmed in black and white using a 4×3 format, I thought that might work, sort of like the Pathé News reels I remember watching. George Clooney as Capt. Jake Geismer—sure, as long as he isn’t too much of a smarty-pants, Cate Blanchett as Lena Brandt—sure, she can do just about any role and as long as her German accent isn’t too odd and Tobey Maguire as Corporal Patrick Tully—maybe, maybe not but then I saw him in Sin City and thought he can handle the role of this two-faced sleaze.
- Director: Steven Soderbergh
- Writer: Paul Attanasio; Joseph Kanon
- Cast:
- Jack Thompson - Congressman Breimer
- John Roeder - General
- George Clooney - Capt. Jacob ‘Jake’ Geismer
- Tobey Maguire - Patrick Tully
- Cate Blanchett - Lena Brandt
- Dominic Comperatore - Levi
- Dave Power - Lieutenant Schaeffer
- Tony Curran - Danny
- Ravil Isyanov - General Sikorsky
- J. Paul Boehmer - British Press Aide
- Igor Korosec - Russian Soldier #1
- Boris Kievsky - Russian Soldier #2
- Vladimir Kulikov - Russian Soldier #3
- Yevgeniy Narovlyanskiy - Russian Soldier #4
- Aleksandr Sountsov - Russian Soldier #5
- Beau Bridges - Colonel Muller
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