"The Nuremberg trials have inspired filmmakers before, from Stanley Kramer's 1961 drama to the 2000 television miniseries with Alec Baldwin and Brian Cox. But for the latest take, "Nuremberg," writer-director James Vanderbilt focuses on a lesser-known figure: The U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who after the war was assigned to supervise and evaluate captured Nazi leaders to ensure they were fit for trial (and also keep them alive). But his is a name that had been largely forgotten: He wasn't even a character in the miniseries."
"The film, in theaters Friday, centers on a series of conversations between Kelley and Goering, who develop something almost like a friendship - or at least a temporary understanding. It's interesting, morally murky territory fitting of the filmmaker best known as the screenwriter of Zodiac that does gesture toward some provocative ideas - including the very concept of war tribunals overseen by the victors. But it can't quite synthesize its classical form with the bleak, sobering truths at its core."
"You might think that these chats would be the kinds you don't want to leave - a meeting of two unique minds trying to figure one another out, and yet there's a spark and intrigue lacking. An unnerving descent into the mind of Hitler's right hand man this is not. Instead, they talk about fathers and greatness and sometimes magic tricks."
Nuremberg centers on U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, assigned to supervise and evaluate captured Nazi leaders after World War II. The film dramatizes a series of conversations between Kelley and Hermann Göring that develop into a fraught, ambiguous rapport. James Vanderbilt frames the narrative around both these intimate encounters and the larger assembling of the historic trial, including Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson's efforts, portrayed by Michael Shannon. The movie probes moral complexity and the legitimacy of victor-led tribunals but struggles to reconcile a classical cinematic form with the grim realities it examines, often leaning on familiar courtroom conventions and restrained psychological depth.
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