A WWII psychiatrist evaluates Nazi leaders before the Nuremberg trials, growing increasingly obsessed with understanding evil as he forms a disturbing bond with Hermann Göring.

There are a lot of current movies analogous to our current world situation but sadly, Nuremberg is one of the more relevant. It shouldn’t be, but for some reason we are back again trying to explain that Nazis are bad. But what makes them even more scary, and especially relevant is that they are also human, something easy to forget when their painted solely with a dark black brush.

Tracking the end of the World War II and the capture of some of Hitler’s top men, Nuremberg follows an enlisted psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) as he evaluates the Nazis being charged with war crimes, and bonds somewhat with Hermann Goring (Russell Crowe), Hitler’s number 2. Michael Shannon is American Robert H. Jackson who, along with Richard E. Grant’s British David Maxwell-Fyfe are the lawyers tasked with the trial. The trial doesn’t fully come into play until the tail end of the movie, with the bulk being spent on the doctor-patient back and forth between Goring and Kelley.

Writer-Director James Vanderbilt hasn’t directed and film since 2015’s Truth. And his last few writing credits have been the last two Scream movies and the first (of hopefully) two Murder Mysterys, as well as the dull Fountain of Youth from earlier this year. So, it’s somewhat surprising he’s been able to craft a tight, historical drama that feature some great performances. Russell Crowe hasn’t been this great since his LA Confidential days, and I doubt he would be anyone’s first choice to play the German Goring. Malek is also solid. The supporting cast is filled with great turns from Shannon (whose opening argument, almost word-for-word from the actual trial is harrowing) and Grant (who gets the save-the-day moment later on in the trial) as well as from others like Leo Woodall, who has the best monologue in a movie filled with them, as the translator assigned to Kelley. John Slattery as the Colonel provides some much-needed comic relief to keep the heaviness of the movie from overtaking it.

All that said, it is still a little long and maybe hits the hammer a bit too hard on making the analogies to modern day. We get it, believe me, but there are a couple points where the movie feels like it’s shouting “SEE! GET IT?” when it could just have a little faith that we already connected those dots.

Jonathan’s grade – B-