Review: NUREMBERG

War's over and all the Nazi high command who haven't killed themselves or themselves been killed, the ones who can't bring themselves to fall on their cyanide capsules are clumped together in a military prison. The question arises about whether to dispatch them with nooses or put them on trial. It's not cut and dried. Hang them and you blow your justice wad, expose them and maybe, just maybe, you avoid another Versailles generation ready for mobilisation for World War III. So they are to go on trial and Major Douglas Kelley, army shrink, is called in to assess them psychiatrically (and also get clued in to the best approach to crush them publicly). He's on it from the off, champing at the bit to meet the seniormost Herman Goering.

Kelley wants to examine evil. If it's something that can be dissected and anatomised, it's something that can be treated if not prevented. Also, it would make for a kickarse pop science book. He's young but seasoned and, to begin with, no match for the manipulative Goering. The plot device is a familiar one whereby the investigator risks seduction by the monster he needs to control. But that's really just mechanics, a little more is on offer here.

Bug eyed Rami Malick appears gives a fragile vulnerability to Kelley, a professional too young to quite get around the lived-in and wily war criminal. As Goering, Russell Crowe turns in an intimidating performance. By that I don't mean that his character is intimidating, that's a given, but his study of the narcissist whose brutality lies hard beneath his charm fills the screen. This is not eerie villain like Hannibal Lecter whose condition allows him a gleeful self awareness, Crowe is showing us someone who either doesn't know or doesn't care about how he appears to anyone else on the planet. This risks audiences writing him off as impenetrable and unworthy of time but Crowe prevents this through personability and an amoured guile. There is a famous image of Goering at the Nuremberg trials. He's sitting in the witenss box, looking to one side and smirking, to himself the sole occupant of the room with the power to drive the proceedings. Crowe has come a long way from his skinhead leader Hando in Romper Stomper but, also, it's as though he's stepped out of Hando's self-image. It's one of the most assured performances I saw on screen in the past year.

The film saves itself from its Netflixy historical drama where writerly scenes parade with cute facts and timeline dialogue. It does this by pushing the central dialogue between Kelley and Goering into pockets of energy that contrast with the more conventional presentation. This brings to the fore some of the ugly irony of the need for a portrait of brutal history at a time so dangerously loud with it. Nuremberg rises above its interest as a period drama because it is made knowing that its audiences are bewildered by the double talk of narcissistic warmongers who get away with eyepoppingly punishing justifications or, worse still, counter accusations (yeah, it's us watching your devastation who have the problem). Horribly, this is one of the most relevant movies on screen at the moment. Go for Crowe's performance and stay for the thinking.