Nuremberg and The Mastermind

James Vanderbilt's Nuremberg is an interesting but not fullyu satisfying approach to the much-visited subject of the trial of the surviving Nazi high command after Germany's surrender in 1945 and the death of Adolph Hitler.

Vanderbilt's picture, based on The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai, is a character study of U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley as played by Rami Malek and Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring, a dedicated Russell Crowe.

Vanderbilt has written an often riveting battle of wits and wills between the self-assured (and self-interested) Kelley and the imperious Göring, as the psychiatrist tries to crack the Nazi mindset.

Kelley is asked by the head of the Nuremberg multinational tribunal, US Associate Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon), to share his insights and analysis with the prosecution team, but Kelley refuses, at first. He hopes to keep whatever he finds during his interviews for later publication. What develops is a strangely symbiotic friendship with Göring, including carrying letters between the German and his family.

Kelley is aided by Army translator Sgt. Howie Triest (a nicely tempered performance by British actor Leo Woodall), who translates interviews between the psychiatrist and the prisoners and offers Kelley invaluable insight of his own. It's Triest's monologue near the end of the picture that lands most compellingly for the viewer.

Though Vanderbilt includes devastating footage of the concentration / death camps taken by Allied Forces during liberation -- including the disposal of mounds of corpses -- the picture falls short of convincingly depicting the monstrosity of the Reich and the men who led it.

Part of the problem is casting the affable Crowe as Göring. Kelley (and, ergo, the film) suggests Göring's enormous self-regard -- depicted in the scene when his escaping car is stopped by American soldiers and he asks them to get his luggage -- made the man incapable of harboring malice toward anyone -- including Jews. He simply did not care about anyone but himself. This is an interesting -- but unpersuasive conceit.

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Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind gives the reliably fascinating English actor Josh O'Connor an opportunity to fully own a picture that plumbs the depths of a character who appears to have few redeemable qualities but manages to convince others to follow him into disaster.

O'Connor's James Mooney is an unemployed Massachusetts cabinet-maker, husband and father of two, son of a judge and art thief in 1970. An unkempt and morose figure, James plans the theft of four abstract pieces from the local museum with three accomplices Larry, Guy and the spitfire Ronnie (Eli Gelb, Cole Doman and Javion Allen, respectively).

The heist is both bungled and successful, with James getting away with the paintings and storing them in the loft of a barn outside of town. When Ronnie gets arrested during a bank robbery, he fingers James as the "mastermind" of the museum job, which leads to James sending his family (Alana Haim and Sterling and Jasper Thompson) to stay with his parents (Bill Camp and Hope Davis) and him hitting the road.

James's desultory wanderings to avoid capture reveal, slowly but wonderfully, the depths of disconnection with the world around him. Though others appear to be drawn to him -- like his starstruck friend Fred (John Magaro), James shows little but the most pragmatic regard for other people, includin ghis wife and children.

And yet, it's difficult to dislike this character. He's so pitiful in his deception that the viewer's heart goes out to him -- which, of course, in real life is how people like James Mooney get through life.