Nuremberg (5 Stars)

This is a powerful historical drama about the Nuremberg trials. It focuses on the army psychologist Douglas Kelley, who was assigned to monitor the mental health of 22 senior Nazi officers who were awaiting trial. Even though he dealt with all of them, the film shows only his dealings with Hermann Göring, Hitler's second-in-command.

Göring was highly intelligent, charismatic and a narcissist. Instead of hiding after the war, he surrendered to the allied troops, because he was certain that he would never be found guilty in a court of law. In actual fact, this is discussed at length in the early scenes. There was no legal precedent for putting the leaders of another country on trial. New laws had to be created to make the trials possible. As Göring correctly says, "I am a prisoner because you won and we lost, not because you're morally superior". At least, that's almost correct. The Nazis were morally inferior because they murdered six million Jews, but if Germany had won the war it would probably have been kept secret.

The performances by Russell Crowe and Rami Malek are brilliant. We can feel Göring's charming arrogance in every mannerism played by Crowe. Rami Malek plays Douglas Kelley as a slightly unhinged man, which is the characteristic of almost every psychiatrist.