A Jewish comedian dies, so she goes up to meet God. Being a comedian, she asks God “Hey, wanna hear a Holocaust joke?” Naturally, God agrees, and the Jewish comedian launches into the most outlandish Holocaust joke she knows.

God is sickened by the Holocaust joke. He’s offended, he’s outraged, he’s screaming out “How could anyone possibly think that was funny?!”

The Jewish comedian shrugs and says “Well… you kinda had to be there.”

***

I was initially hesitant to review Nuremberg, because it’s a 140-minute movie about the freaking Nuremberg Trials. We know who the good guys are, we know who the bad guys are, we all know exactly what happens. That assumption was my first mistake.

The film opens with Hermann Goring (here immortalized by Russell Crowe, of all people) as he surrenders to Allied forces on the last day of the war in May 1945. As a refresher, Goring was the supreme military commander of the Third Reich, second only to the Fuhrer himself. And now that Hitler’s dead (along with Himmler, Goebbels, and Bohrmann, among others), Goring is the senior ranking officer of the Nazi Party.

(Side note: While Goring was never technically demoted in rank or power, Hitler had increasingly sidelined him after a string of Allied victories and Hitler’s own deteriorating mental state. At a guess, that distancing is likely why Goring lived long enough to surrender.)

Which leaves the question of what to do with him, not to mention all the other ranking Nazi officers who were somehow taken alive. The easier and most popular option would be to kill them immediately, but it’s just not that simple. In fact, that might be the thesis statement of the entire film: “It’s just not that simple.”

On the one hand, there’s a distinct risk that killing the Nazis would make them martyrs. I need hardly add that execution without trial is a slippery slope that nobody really wants to go down. Perhaps most importantly, an exhaustive trial would show the entire world exactly what happened (the worst of the Holocaust atrocities were only rumors at this point), which is the only real hope we have that this could never happen again.

On the other hand, a fair trial opens up the possibility that the defendants could be acquitted, which could effectively nullify the entire Allied victory. And of course we viewers of the 21st century know all too fucking well that putting the Nazis on trial is hardly a foolproof means of ensuring the Nazis would never come back. I need hardly add that giving the Nazis a platform to explain their views and defend their actions could have the opposite of the intended effect.

The bottom line here is that the Nazis have to be put on trial, and they have to lose by whatever means necessary. What the Allies need here is a trial that looks fair, sounds fair, and seems fair, but isn’t fair. Then again, if the defendants are being executed following conviction by a rigged trial, doesn’t that defeat the point?

Further complicating matters, there is no framework, no precedence, no case law for a trial of this scope. What nation has jurisdiction in an international trial? What laws and charges and penalties apply? What even is the legal definition of a “crime against humanity”? Nobody has any idea what they’re doing here. But considering that all wars are now international in scope and relations between countries are only getting more complex, they’d better start figuring that out now!

Speaking of international crimes, it’s worth remembering that the Allies may not be in the best place to pass judgment here. The Americans had their own concentration camps for anyone who even looked Japanese, our use of atomic weapons was controversial for a multitude of reasons, and that’s not even getting started on all the genocide and enslavement in American history outside WWII. Moreover, it’s perhaps worth asking why the USA is suing Germany for war crimes when Germany never directly attacked the USA.

Granted, this is a multinational lawsuit being tried by legal minds from all the most prominent of the Allied nations. Which of course includes Russia. Under Stalin. You want to talk about a mass-murdering tyrant subjecting his own people to unspeakable atrocities, fucking yeesh.

Repeatedly, Goring argues that the only difference between the Axis and the Allies are that the Allies won, and it would be the American leaders getting demonized if things had gone the other way. Reasonable minds can disagree on whether or not that’s a false equivalence. The fact remains that as with all wars, WWII was ugly and everyone involved was responsible for unspeakable horrors. It’s perfectly rational that those who committed horrific crimes should be made to answer for them, and it’s sensible that the winners should make the losers reckon with their crimes.

But what about the winners? Who will make the winners reckon with their horrific crimes?

There’s a notable sequence in which the filmmakers present six minutes of the actual 52-minute film reel produced by John Ford and screened at the real trials. The clip contains gruesome depictions of the unthinkable carnage that took place at the Nazi extermination camps. Later on, we see a Nuremberg convict hanging from the neck until dead, portrayed in gut-churning detail. Sure, the death of a high-ranking Nazi is hardly of equal scope to the mass slaughter of millions, but that’s beside the point. The point is that they are both state-sponsored acts of painful and ignominious homicide, and the victims are all equally dead.

Whether it’s criminals getting the death penalty, people getting killed in war, or one race getting exterminated for the benefit of another race, governments have often made the case that taking a human life can be a necessary evil. This film makes the clear and strong case that even a necessary evil is still evil. And a human life is still a human life, no matter what they’ve done or been accused of.

The film comes stacked with a deep and impressive cast of actors. Michael Shannon plays SCOTUS Justice Robert H. Jackson, here portrayed as the chief prosecutor and legal architect of the Nuremberg Trials. We’ve also got Richard E. Grant as a fellow prosecutor, representing the UK. John Slattery is acting well within his wheelhouse as Col. Burton Andrus, who effectively serves as the prison warden for the Nuremberg defendants.

But the de facto protagonist here is Lt. Col. Douglas Kelley, an army doctor played by Rami Malek. In theory, he’s the psychiatrist appointed to examine the defendants and make sure they’re mentally fit to stand trial. In practice, he’s there so he can build a rapport with the defendants, thereby gaining valuable intel about how they think and how they plan to legally defend themselves.

Naturally, disclosing such information to the prosecution would be a flagrantly unethical breach of doctor-patient confidentiality at the very least. Then again, it bears remembering that the whole concept of Nuremberg is new and everyone’s making up the laws and ethics as they go along. I might add that the film repeatedly describes the trials as another battle (hopefully the last) in the ongoing WWII, and ethics got thrown out the window long ago where this war is concerned. And it bears repeating that the Nazis must be convicted by any means necessary or the Allied victory was for nothing.

This brings us to the Kelley/Goring interplay that the film revolves around. Given the review so far, I hope you won’t be surprised to hear that this relationship is massively complicated.

The doctor-patient confidentiality between them is exceptionally fraught. Especially since Goring is smart enough to know perfectly well that even if Kelley isn’t actively spilling his secrets, someone is definitely listening in. I need hardly add that both of them are acutely aware that each is trying to control the other, so we’re watching Rami Malek and Russell Crowe playing two charismatic underhanded bastards trying to one-up each other. Damn good cinema right there.

It’s genuinely fascinating to watch Kelley’s mental and moral decline throughout the picture. At the open, Kelley seems genuinely enthusiastic about publishing a book on the subject of evil, to better educate the masses on this fascist menace and hopefully prevent the next one. And if he happens to make a lot of money in the process, so much the better.

But then Kelley starts to backslide on his medical ethics. He gets territorial about sharing credit and profits for the book he plans to write. He goes to the prosecution with privileged information about Goring. He oversteps professional boundaries in earning Goring’s trust. He gets to self-medicating with alcohol, to disastrous effect.

(Side note: Colin Hanks briefly appears in a deeply unflattering portrayal of Captain Gustave Gilbert, a rival USA army psychiatrist on the case. Gilbert went on to write “The Nuremberg Diary” and “The Psychology of a Dictatorship”, both widely considered authoritative works on the subject. Kelley’s book, “22 Cells in Nuremberg”, went nowhere.)

As portrayed in the film, Kelley stared too long into the abyss, working too closely with Goring, putting too much time and effort into analyzing the Nazi mindset. Goring had successfully convinced Kelley that there really is no meaningful difference between the Nazis and the Americans, and fascism could spread just as easily among the Allies. It was a message nobody wanted to hear until long after Kelley’s premature death.

To be clear, the film does not excuse anything that Goring or the Nazis did. Indeed, the film is emphatically and repeatedly clear in its portrayal of Goring as a narcissist who can justify anything for the sake of his own ego and self-preservation. Then again, that’s entirely Kelley’s diagnosis. As the plot unfolds, we learn that there is indeed something that Goring loves more than himself.

Yes, Goring is effortlessly charismatic and intelligent, a man who deeply loves his nation. On top of that, he has a beautiful wife and daughter (respectively played by Lotte Verbeek and Fleur Bremmer), and it’s clear that Goring is the patriarch of a tightly affectionate family unit. Does that excuse anything Goring was a part of? Hell no. But that doesn’t square with the accepted depiction of him as a monster, either.

It’s so much easier to pretend that Goring and his ilk were inhuman beasts, ignoring all the signs that they were fallible and flawed humans just like us. Because to acknowledge that they were fellow humans would imply that we might be just as capable of crimes against humanity. Also, robbing mass murderers of their humanity makes it so much easier to deliver the kind of punishment such an unthinkable crime deserves.

There’s one point in the movie when Goring makes the observation that history will remember his terrible legacy while Kelley will only be a historical footnote if he’s lucky. Indeed, Goring was right on both counts. Then again, it was Kelley’s work that played a crucial role in exposing Goring’s crimes and getting him executed. Meanwhile, Edda — Goring’s only daughter — died in 2018 with no spouse or issue that I can find any mention of. How does all that balance out in the long run of history? You tell me.

With all of that said, I’d be remiss not to mention Sgt. Howie Triest, here played by Leo Woodall. The character starts out as a sidekick to Kelley, serving as his German translator. That all changes as the plot unfolds, right up until a showstopping monologue in which Triest unloads his tragic backstory. I’m loathe to go into details, but suffice to say that Triest has his own deeply personal connection with the Holocaust. In effect, he provides a vital service to the movie, speaking on behalf of those who died or survived or lost loved ones during the Holocaust. He provides a firm reminder that regardless of all the moral ambiguities, this trial matters. Regardless of who or what will be judged by history, it makes a huge difference to a lot of people and their descendants as to whether these particular Nazis live or die.

So, are there any nitpicks? Honestly, I was disappointed to see that the defense counsel only got a couple of passing mentions. I’d be genuinely interested to see how a lawyer in this context would go about his impossible job in defending these clients simply because they are due a legal advocate just like anyone else in a supposedly fair trial. (See also: Bridge of Spies) That’s so far in keeping with the moral themes of the film that neglecting the defense lawyers entirely seems like a grievous oversight.

Still, by far the bigger problem here is that the movie is so painstakingly researched and it all feels so authentic that the fabricated Hollywood bullshit is so much more noticeable. I refer to Lydia Peckham in the role of Lila, a potential love interest for Kelley. She’s a female character and a romantic subplot in a film otherwise void of both, and she contributes basically nothing until a cliched plot turn into the third act. As with Faye Romano, I don’t mind that Lila was invented for the movie — I hate that the filmmakers thought such an uninspired character was necessary and did so little to justify the decision. Seriously, if this was the best they could do, they shouldn’t have bothered.

No two ways about it, Nuremberg is a tough watch. It’s a bleak and brutal film about a highly sensitive subject matter, and it’s pointed directly at the neo-fascist times we’re living in now. Even so, I found the film to be so eloquent, so painstakingly crafted, so superbly performed that watching it was well worth the effort.

The highest praise I can give this film is that I wish I’d had it back when I was studying the Holocaust in college. It’s that type of movie. If you’re tough enough to take some bitter medicine, check this one out.