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Metascore
16 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 70The Hollywood ReporterRay BennettThe Hollywood ReporterRay BennettPaced deliberately in a way that reinforces the tragedy of evil flourishing when good men do nothing, Good may find boxoffice returns slow to build but the film's aim is true and patient audiences will be well rewarded.
- 70NPRBob MondelloNPRBob MondelloGood demonstrates the surprising power of character flaws in drama. How else to explain that the portrayal of a good man who does nothing in Good should prove more dramatically compelling than the stories in "Valkyrie" and "Defiance" of good men who did good?
- 50ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliViggo Mortensen looks the part but never brings it home with great conviction or passion. I never believed in the character and that greatly diminished the film's ability to argue its ethical case.
- 50USA TodayClaudia PuigUSA TodayClaudia PuigThough the film opens with an intriguing burnished look, it bogs down about halfway through with talkiness and uneven pacing.
- 50The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe A.V. ClubNoel MurrayIt's an old-fashioned hoke-fest, in which the otherness of Germany is connoted by having everyone speak with a British accent.
- 40VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyConsidering its theme and setting, there's something very wrong with a Good that seems merely competent, uninspired and a bit old-hat.
- Regrettably, the long-delayed adaptation from director Vicente Amorim and screenwriter John Wrathall gets crushed by the weight of trying to be something more; it's really just the story of a rather ordinary but disappointing man. The filmmakers reach for metaphor and allegory, but it comes at the expense of an emotional connection.
- 40New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanAn uncharacteristically stiff Mortensen can't break free from the clichés that constrain his character, who feels more like a symbol than a real person.
- 20The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenIn Good, the anemic screen adaptation of C. P. Taylor's play about a respectable "good German" who passively acquiesces to Hitler's agenda, Viggo Mortensen, miscast and ineptly directed by Vicente Amorim, plays John Halder, a liberal, mild-mannered literature professor who becomes a Nazi.
- 0Village VoiceVillage VoiceSo incompetently mounted by Brazilian director Vicente Amorim (it takes a clumsy directorial hand to make Viggo Mortensen come on like Sesame Street's Mr. Noodle) as to be utterly incoherent.