Good
THINKFilm | Release Date: December 31, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
11
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Good has a stagy fustiness, but it's worth seeing for Mortensen, who makes this study of a "good German" look creepily contemporary. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Paced deliberately in a way that reinforces the tragedy of evil flourishing when good men do nothing, Good may find boxoffice returns slow to build but the film's aim is true and patient audiences will be well rewarded. Read full review
70
NPRBob Mondello
Good demonstrates the surprising power of character flaws in drama. How else to explain that the portrayal of a good man who does nothing in Good should prove more dramatically compelling than the stories in "Valkyrie" and "Defiance" of good men who did good? Read full review
60
Film ThreatScott Mendelson
An interesting idea, thoughtfully acted and visually intriguing. However, it is nearly undone by a lead character that fails to represent the general idea that the film is allegedly about. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
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 full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Though the film opens with an intriguing burnished look, it bogs down about halfway through with talkiness and uneven pacing. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
It's an old-fashioned hoke-fest, in which the otherness of Germany is connoted by having everyone speak with a British accent. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
The banality of evil has met its match in the banality of Good, a Holocaust parable that barely registers a pulse. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Good contributes very little to a conundrum that has occupied historians and psychologists for half a century. Read full review
40
VarietyDennis Harvey
Considering its theme and setting, there's something very wrong with a Good that seems merely competent, uninspired and a bit old-hat. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
Regrettably, the long-delayed adaptation from director Vicente Amorim and screenwriter John Wrathall gets crushed by the weight of trying to be something more; it's really just the story of a rather ordinary but disappointing man. The filmmakers reach for metaphor and allegory, but it comes at the expense of an emotional connection. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
An uncharacteristically stiff Mortensen can't break free from the clichés that constrain his character, who feels more like a symbol than a real person. Read full review
40
TimeRichard Schickel
Inept works like Good, which remains, like most such works, on the anecdotal fringe of the problem. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
As a film, it's overly tidy, and the surreal concentration-camp climax gave at least one viewer an inappropriate fit of giggles. Read full review
20
The New York TimesStephen Holden
In Good, the anemic screen adaptation of C. P. Taylor's play about a respectable "good German" who passively acquiesces to Hitler's agenda, Viggo Mortensen, miscast and ineptly directed by Vicente Amorim, plays John Halder, a liberal, mild-mannered literature professor who becomes a Nazi. Read full review
0
Village VoiceElla Taylor
So incompetently mounted by Brazilian director Vicente Amorim (it takes a clumsy directorial hand to make Viggo Mortensen come on like Sesame Street's Mr. Noodle) as to be utterly incoherent. Read full review
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