Good 2008

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The subject -- self-deception and failure of nerve in an unjust world -- is too messy and horrible to laugh away. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: It definitely wouldn't have done anyone involved with Good any harm to ask what relevance heavy-handed history plays have to do with the world of today. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: To those who wonder if we really need Hollywood to give us more Holocaust stories, I would argue yes, just better ones than we get with Good. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Good contributes very little to a conundrum that has occupied historians and psychologists for half a century. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Good has a stagy fustiness, but it's worth seeing for Mortensen, who makes this study of 
 a 'good German' look creepily contemporary. He shows us the horror 
 of ignorance. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: A subtle and quietly devastating film directed by Vicente Amorim from John Wrathall's delicately written adaptation of a play by C.P. Taylor. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: There are some striking locations and certainly the era continues to fascinate audiences (and, particularly this year, filmmakers). Too bad, then, that this is such a disappointment -- awkwardly directed and flatly scripted. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR.org: Good is pretty schematic — betraying its theatrical roots, perhaps. It's also a little drawn out. But it demonstrates the surprising power of character flaws in drama. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: We know just what each character will do, and exactly where each path will lead. And we're never wrong. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The banality of evil has met its match in the banality of Good, a Holocaust parable that barely registers a pulse. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Viggo Mortensen looks the part but never brings it home with great conviction or passion. I never believed in the character and that greatly diminished the film's ability to argue its ethical case. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: Morally speaking, everything about Good is tidily correct. But it is more a predictable parable than a full-fledged narrative. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Despite its rather highbrow pedigree, Good's journey along its predetermined path from book burnings to concentration camps reeks of middlebrow button-pushing, which the cast's clipped British accents do nothing to dispel. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: By all accounts, Taylor's play was a more experimental piece than this film, in which the production values, like the acting, veer between the acceptable and the stodgy. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Though the film opens with an intriguing burnished look, it bogs down about halfway through with talkiness and uneven pacing. When reality finally dawns on Halder, it is not only too late for him to redeem himself, but too late for the audience to care. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: The often impressive Mortensen can't make Halder much more than a stereotypical academic milquetoast. Other perfs come off just adequate, though not for lack of effort. Read more

Ella Taylor, Village Voice: A really terrible movie based on what I imagine was a far more interesting 1981 play. Read more