‘Nuremberg’: Russell Crowe Becomes a Chilling Hermann Göring in a Gripping Drama About the Nazi Trials

Alci Rengifo

The evils of Nazi Germany were so horrifying that World War II has provided an easy crop of go-to villains ever since Adolf Hitler was defeated. Few dramas have tried to truly tackle the harder questions behind the social history of what led to the rise of the Nazi Party’s power and the Holocaust. “Nuremberg” makes a commendable effort in exploring challenging themes while still delivering a rather classic courtroom drama, one that will no doubt be easily tagged as Oscar bait. That would be a bit unfair. Russell Crowe’s performance as Third Reich high official Hermann Göring is an intelligently unsettling depiction of fascism in all its arrogance. 

Director James Vanderbilt opens traditionally enough in 1945 as the war is ending, Hitler has committed suicide, Germany is in ruins and the Allies are on the alert for Nazi high command figures on the run. Hermann Göring (Crowe), once the powerful President of the Reichstag and Chief of the Luftwaffe High Command, makes his way to the American lines with his family, calmly surrendering to U.S. troops. Fast forward to the formation of the International Military Tribunal which will be represented by the Allies as the captured Nazis are prepared to face a historic trial at Nuremberg for their crimes. U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), an Army psychiatrist, is brought in to interrogate Göring to determine if he is fit for trial. After one sit down with the self-assured Nazi, Kelley is soon eager to speak with the other 21 Third Reich figures in custody. The psychiatrist realizes he may have a groundbreaking study in his hands on the nature of evil and how the phenomenon of Nazism was able to take root. 

Like clockwork, fall season is when the studios roll out their World War II productions to remind us Hollywood can still churn out sweeping epics about an important conflict nearly everyone agrees on. “Nuremberg” is still different by focusing on personalities and the psychological workings of evil as opposed to battles. Vanderbilt’s screenplay takes on the same challenge as films like Margarethe von Trotta’s “Hannah Arendt,” in dramatizing how Nazism was not some isolated event, but a terrifying culmination of attitudes and ideas that can spread anywhere under the right conditions. After getting around some of Göring’s games, like pretending not to speak English, Kelley is able to win his trust by appealing to the man’s ego. When he mentions the are guards making fun of his weight, Göring imposes an exercise routine on himself. He shows off his battle scars from the early days of the Nazi movement and the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. More importantly, he lays out the reasoning behind Hitler’s ascendance, reminding his interrogator that Germany had been broken by the Treaty of Versailles following World War I. Economic collapse had made society fertile for the dark ravings of Hitler and the movement, which then used antisemitism to spread racial hatred and violence towards the Jewish population.

The movie would have been fascinating enough by focusing primarily on Kelley’s time with the Nazi prisoners. Vanderbilt builds morbidly fascinating portraits of other figures like Robert Ley (Tom Keune), a Nazi with a lingering, pathological paranoia about Jews. As if to satisfy the need for more conventional dramatic turns, room is made for characters like Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon), an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in representing the U.S. at Nuremberg and Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe (Richard E. Grant), the British prosecutor. Oddly enough, never is the Soviet member of the team given any room. Jackson and Maxwell-Fyfe embody the more traditional seekers of justice, demanding concrete proof to get these criminals hung as soon as possible. They become suspicious of Kelley’s growing closeness to Göring and a perceived empathy for the prisoner. What they are initially resistant to is Kelley’s unnerving conclusion that there is little that is special about Göring as a personality. Yes men and ambition can turn many people functioning within systems of power into monsters, or capable of monstrous acts. When confronted about the death camps, Göring calmly makes the excuse that he didn’t know, since that wasn’t his particular department. It is so easy for operators in a bureaucracy to wash their hands of blood, as we still see happening today.

Russell Crowe’s performance is one of the actor’s recent best. It is a reminder of just how talented he is, after being relegated to some odd stinkers like “Unhinged” and “The Pope’s Exorcist.” He may not be the lean gladiator of his early glory days, but like Marlon Brando, he uses that fact to great advantage. His Göring is not a cartoon villain but a calculating narcissist, convinced he can outsmart the great powers now determining his fate. He does care for his wife and daughter, though it is hard to know if he genuinely feels affection for Kelley or if it is an experienced operator trying to play the system. Crowe evokes so well the reality of monsters decked in uniforms and titles. It takes footage of the death camp’s victims, shown at the Nuremberg trial, to show the full scale of the regime’s horrors. Crowe does not overplay the role even in these moments, making Göring feign shock and even embarrassment at the evidence. He defends himself to Jackson claiming he simply wanted to have Jews exiled to other countries, not exterminated. Such cynical cowardice and Crowe performs it to perfection. 

If you know your history then the ending of “Nuremberg” when it comes to Göring is no surprise. When denied an execution by firing squad, the captured Nazi committed suicide with a hidden cyanide capsule in his cell. Vanderbilt doesn’t use the moment to deliver some kind of satisfying ending for the audience. Kelley would go on to argue that the real lesson of Nazism is that it could sprout even in the United States. During the Red Scare he is warned during a radio program to be careful about his statements. It was not popular to make comparisons between fascism and McCarthyism. Kelley and other thinkers who tried to draw lucid lessons from the war would be frightened but not surprised by contemporary developments, as fascistic forces are on the rise, genocide is live on our portable screens and our country faces clear, authoritarian threats. The Nuremberg trials set new codes of international law meant to stop future atrocities but which are easily brushed aside by those with enough power. “Nuremberg” on the surface may look like another Oscar season World War II movie, yet it may be one of the season’s most relevant films.

“Nuremberg” releases Nov. 7 in theaters nationwide.