Nuremberg (15)
Directed by James Vanderbilt
★★★★

“I AM going to put Hermann Goering on the stand and I’m going to make him tell the world what he did so that it can never happen again,” states Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon), the chief prosecutor and architect of the Nuremberg trials, in writer-director James Vanderbilt’s powerful and visceral historical war drama. 

Based on Jack El-Hai’s book “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist,” the film, set after Hitler’s death, examines the relationship that developed between Goering (Russell Crowe) and US military psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) who was brought in to assess whether Hitler’s number two and the other 21 Nazi prisoners were fit for trial.

It gave Kelley the opportunity to analyse the nature of evil in order, supposedly, to identify and prevent it in the future. What he uncovered was that these inmates — many members of the Nazi high command — were not pathologically insane or ill but were ordinary men (husbands and fathers) who through circumstance and choice had become heinously evil. The film suggests that such a fate could happen to any one of us. 

Goering was charming, funny and very intelligent, though a narcissist, as he embarked on an intricate cat and mouse game with Kelley. Kelley found himself being seduced by Goering while remembering that as Hilter’s number two and Reichsmarschall he knew exactly what was going on in the concentration camps despite his denials. He shows how evil can be insidious and appear as logical, personable or persuasive, which is terrifying. 

Vanderbilt delivers a masterfully crafted and gripping psychological thriller and courtroom drama, which is also unnerving and deeply harrowing.

Featuring a stellar cast who all bring their A game, it is driven by a career-best performance from Crowe and a magnetic and complex turn by Malek, who are electric together. Crowe and Shannon’s courtroom showdown, shot in a single take, is electrifying as they go toe to toe. Richard E Grant also brings it home as the British prosecutor as he questions Goering on the stand, in a scene reminiscent of Jack Nicholson being grilled in A Few Good Men. It is hair-raising.  

The biggest revelation is Leo Woodall (Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy) who is truly impressive as a US army German translator. 

“You want to know why it happened here? Because people let it happen” he tells Kelley; words which, disturbingly, still ring true today. Think Gaza, Ukraine and Donald Trump.

In cinemas November 14