Good

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“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Edmund Burke’s much-quoted adage is exquisitely brought to life in Vicente Amorim’s Good. Adapted from CP Taylor’s play – named among the “100 best plays of the century” – Amorim, alongside screenwriter John Wrathall and an astounding Viggo Mortensen confidently bring this compelling story into the new century.

Mortensen is John Hadler, a university literature professor in interwar Germany. Outwardly he is a good teacher, a good son, husband and friend. But when approached by the National Socialists to expand his novel into a paper on ‘mercy killings,’ Hadler’s life soon transforms; this ‘consultant on humanity’ finds himself slipping down a very dark path indeed.


Too soon, Hadler flees from the family home and into the seductive arms of a young student (Jodie Whittaker). His dementing, desperately ill mother (Gemma Jones) provides an all too personal argument for (or perhaps against?) mercy killings, while his Jewish best friend Maurice (Jason Isaacs) refusing then begging to flee Nazi Germany only compounds Hadler’s well-meaning ineptitude.

This morality play eschews melodrama for a slow burn that reveals the subtle banality of evil. An impressive supporting cast, notably Issacs, Mark Strong and an underused Whittaker, augments Mortensen’s masterfully understated performance. And although the film falls into the adaptation pitfall of weak ‘action’ scenes, Mortensen breathing life into this sophisticated fare is more than worth your time.

Though historiographical theories on Nazi Germany abound, Good distils this horrific history of the Fatherland into the devastating Sonderweg of one otherwise decent man.

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The review was published in The Brag.

DVD now available to rent or purchase.