BY ROGER WATSON
With a cast including Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon and Richard E Grant you would expect Nuremberg (2025) to be good. And it is. The score of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes is less generous than it should be but that is from the panjandrums of the film critic industry. The score of 96% on the Popcornmeter of registered viewers seems nearer the mark.
This is very much a film of two halves, deliberately, and it hinges on the discovery by the psychiatrist appointed to analyse Hermann Göring, awaiting trial at Nuremberg, discovering exactly what had been happening in the Nazi extermination camps. The army psychiatrist, Dr Douglas Kelley portrayed by Rami Malek, works hard to win the trust of Göring (Russell Crowe) and seems to develop a genuine friendship with him.
He even visits Göring’s wife and daughter with the excuse that he would learn more about his patient. He illegally conveys notes between Göring and his family. Apparently – not portrayed in the film – Kelley grew so fond of Göring’s daughter that he considered raising her himself in the United States.
I feel increasingly in safe hands with Malek in one of his regular leading roles (Country Squire Magazine passim). I was not disappointed. And Crowe is nothing less than brilliant as the narcissistic, highly intelligent and manipulative Göring. One could almost be forgiven for thinking that these Nazis were not such a bad lot after all. Such is the power of this film to seduce the viewer.
But about halfway through, you are faced with real footage shown at the trials from the liberated concentration camps of bodies piled high, being bulldozed by the hundred into mass graves and human rib cages half burned in incinerators. You are soon back to the view, promoted in jest by comedian Dominic Holland, that ‘the more you hear about the Nazis, the less you like them’.
The sub-plot involves the selection of Justice Robert H Jackson, portrayed by Michael Shannon, as the Chief US Prosecutor at Nuremberg and the less than welcome appearance of Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, the British lead prosecutor, portrayed by Richard E Grant. The pressure simply to execute Göring and his fellow prisoners, the first 22 to be tried at Nuremberg, is immense but Jackson believes that they should rise above this by holding trials. To do otherwise would make martyrs of the Nazis. Some believed the trials would also give them a platform. This seems plausible given that Göring tells Kelley he surrendered deliberately and that he was exactly where he intended to be, and in control.
As the story develops, Kelley loses the trust of the military authorities in charge of Nuremberg. Another army psychiatrist, Dr. Gustave Gilbert is brought in to offer second opinions on Kelley’s patients, including Göring, Gilbert is portrayed by Colin Hanks (yes, son of Tom). The two are portrayed having a fight – entirely fictional – leading to Kelley’s dismissal and return to the United States. This also did not happen as he was honourably discharged. But the apparent tension between the two psychiatrists is what leads Kelley to provide some vital understanding of what made Göring tick, to prosecutors Jackson and Fyfe.
The Nazis go to trial but the courtroom action focuses entirely on the prosecution of Göring. Jackson, trying to make use of what he learned from Kelley, opens but fails completely to ask a killer question of Göring that would ensure he faced the noose. Fyfe takes over – which really happened – and manages to evoke the killer answer from Göring. His fate is sealed along with ten others. Göring escapes hanging by taking his own life and only the other ten were hanged on 16 October 1946. The first execution is portrayed.
By the time of Göring’s suicide and the executions, Kelley was back in the United States. The film, however, decides that he attended the trials. Nuremberg purists will, undoubtedly, rant about such cinematic licence and, I must say, I fail to see why it is necessary to do this. The story of Nuremberg is gripping enough and of such historical significance that the real unadulterated story would have sufficed. Nevertheless, the 2 hours and 28 minutes passes quickly.
At least one aspect of the story was not altered regarding British prosecutor Fyfe saving the day after Jackson’s disastrous opening efforts during which he was humiliated by Göring. This is remarkable and laudable given the number of American actors in the film and the fact that two of the three production companies were American. Perhaps the outrage of British World War II historians was too much to contemplate.
Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.