*****

 Essentially a big budget double hander between Russel Crowe as Goering and  the psychiatrist detailed to profile him.

Crowe is magnificent as Goering and physically  almost unrecognisable.

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The  film which is visually Hollywood glossy at times, interspersed with period original film footage combined with intensely personal , manu et manu no frills, interview scenes.

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The film’s written and directed by James Vanderbilt, sho wrote  the screenplays for  David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007) , It is described as an epic, 148 mins,   because it is long- but never drags. The psychiatrist is Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), brought in to ensure the imprisoned Nazi high command don’t kill themselves before they can stand trial. Kelley has a bigger picture in mind: if he can “dissect evil” – slap a label on the psychological dysfunction that drives these men to barbarity – then he’ll have a bestseller on his hands.

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There is some nice dry humour, “Who is bigger than the president of the Unite States”? cue the Pope at the Vatican who is then black mailed into supporting the allied plan. Its tendency to veer towards American bombastic pomposity is undercut when British prosecutor save the day with his advice to his American counterpart, lawyers American Robert H Jackson (Michael Shannon) and  Brit David Maxwell Fyfe (Richard E Grant) which is rather satisfying.

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Vanderbilt succeeds in shrinking a gargantuan story into a manageable intense dram, Crowe succeeds in shrinking from a nazi behemoth to a broken shell.

An excellent film.