Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

52 [Rec] 2
xx 12th & Delaware
xx 180° South
90 45365
55 8: The Mormon Proposition
xx Accidents Happen
62 After the Cup: The Sons of Sakhnin United
36 After.Life
73 Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, The
56 Agora
82 Ajami
77 Alamar
78 Anton Chekhov's The Duel
63 Around a Small Mountain
xx Audrey the Trainwreck
xx Badmaash Company
xx Barking Water
75 Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
62 Behind the Burly Q
63 Best Worst Movie
31 Black Waters of Echo's Pond, The
35 Boogie Woogie
64 Breath Made Visible: Anna Halprin
24 Burzynski
xx Ca$h
59 Cartel, The
68 Casino Jack and the United States of Money
xx Cheech & Chong's Hey Watch This
48 Chloe
66 City Island
52 City of Your Final Destination, The
56 Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
xx Contenders, The
xx Convention
68 Countdown to Zero
83 Crazy Heart
51 Creation
xx Cremaster Cycle, The
73 Cropsey
73 Cyrus
74 Daddy Longlegs
73 Dogtooth
50 Don McKay
66 Double Take
67 Eclipse, The
85 Exit Through the Gift Shop
74 Farewell
76 Father of My Children, The
30 Finding Bliss
52 Formosa Betrayed
60 Fresh
53 Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema
43 George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead
68 Ghost Bird
77 Ghost Writer, The
68 Girl on the Train, The
66 Girl Who Played with Fire, The
xx Gone with the Pope
40 Good Heart, The
69 Good, The Bad, The Weird, The
51 Great Directors
45 Greatest, The
76 Greenberg
59 Handsome Harry
24 Happiness Runs
73 Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess
54 Harry Brown
80 Have You Heard From Johannesburg?: Apartheid and the Club of the West
57 Here and There
xx Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger
51 Holy Rollers
32 Human Centipede (First Sequence), The
78 I Am Love
91 I Was Born, But...
33 In My Sleep
60 Infidel, The
67 It Came From Kuchar
75 Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
79 Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
57 John Rabe
55 Joneses, The
55 Juche Idea, The
65 Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D
86 Kids Are All Right, The
53 Killer Inside Me, The
53 Killing Kasztner
44 Kimjongilia
xx Kings of the Evening
69 Kisses
62 Kites: The Remix
47 La Mission
xx Law, The
63 Lbs.
xx Le amiche
58 Leaves of Grass
72 Let It Rain
67 Life During Wartime
41 Lightkeepers, The
76 Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
37 Living Wake, The
66 Looking for Eric
63 Lottery, The
36 Love Ranch
83 Mademoiselle Chambon
xx Malice in Wonderland
46 Mercy
78 Messenger, The
47 Metropia
62 Micmacs
75 Mid-August Lunch
54 Misfortunates, The
64 Mother and Child
35 Multiple Sarcasms
xx My Girlfriend's Boyfriend
50 My Name is Khan
41 Nature of Existence, The
xx Nightfall
71 No One Knows About Persian Cats
59 Nobody’s Perfect
72 Oath, The
xx Ocean of Pearls
65 Ondine
59 Only When I Dance
59 OSS 117: Lost in Rio
xx Other Guys, The
37 Paper Man
42 Perfect Game, The
47 Perrier's Bounty
48 Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies
78 Please Give
31 Pornography: A Thriller
41 Princess Kaiulani
90 Prophet, A
xx Raajneeti
67 Raavan
78 Racing Dreams
xx Ramchand Pakistani
xx Red Birds
63 Reel Injun
84 Restrepo
xx Road, Movie
45 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
xx Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
81 Secret in Their Eyes, The
81 Secret of Kells, The
73 See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary
57 Severe Clear
57 Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
52 Shine of Rainbows, A
77 Single Man, A
69 Solitary Man
44 South of the Border
75 Square, The
22 Standing Ovation
76 Stonewall Uprising
53 Tales from the Script
74 Terribly Happy
78 Teza
75 That Evening Sun
49 Thorn in the Heart, The
60 TiMER
15 To Age or Not to Age
52 Touching Home
33 Trash Humpers
59 Trotsky, The
56 Two in the Wave
57 Valhalla Rising
85 Vincere
xx Visionaries
54 Wah Do Dem
70 Warlords, The
55 When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors
68 Whiz Kids
52 Who Do You Love
66 Wild Grass
xx Wild Hunt, The
69 Winnebago Man
90 Winter's Bone
68 Women Without Men
xx World on a Wire

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Good

EMAILPRINTTHINKFilm

Good reviews
40
4.8 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 12 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: John Wrathall

Directed by: Vicente Amorim

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 31, 2008

Running Time: 96 minutes, Color

Origin: UK | Germany

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs, Jodie Whittaker, Mark Strong, Steven Mackintosh, and Gemma Jones

A German literature professor in the 1930s, John Halder explores his personal circumstances in a novel advocating compassionate euthanasia. When the book is unexpectedly enlisted by powerful political figures in support of government propaganda, Halder finds his career rising in an optimistic current of nationalism and prosperity. Yet with Halder’s change in fortune, his seemingly inconsequential decisions potentially jeopardize the people in his life with devastating effects. (THINKFilms)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75

Entertainment Weekly Owen 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 Reporter Ray 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

NPR Bob 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 Threat Scott 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

New York Post Kyle 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 Monitor Peter Rainer

Good contributes very little to a conundrum that has occupied historians and psychologists for half a century.

Read Full Review >
50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel 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

ReelViews James 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 Today Claudia Puig

Though the film opens with an intriguing burnished look, it bogs down about halfway through with talkiness and uneven pacing.

Read Full Review >
40

Los Angeles Times Betsy 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 News Elizabeth 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

Variety Dennis 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

Time Richard 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 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 Times Stephen 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 Voice Ella 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 >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

April gave it a10:
Flawless performance, great acting. Intriguing, authentic movie.

Edourad D. gave it a10:
This film told me a lot about myself and our world. Subtle and affecting.

Popular on CBS sites: US Open | PGA Championship | iPad | Video Game Reviews | Cell Phones

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use (UPDATED)