Good (1:36) 2008

This review can be started in two ways. The movie is Good and at the beginning it really isn't. I had to force myself to stay with it. The second  is to say Good is a good and powerful story about the terrible things that happen when good people say or do nothing. Viggo Mortensen portrays John Halder a university professor in 1937 Berlin. John is unhappily married with several active children and an ailing mother. He is also an author of a novel about compassionate euthanasia. His best friend is a Jewish psychoanalysis. Halder is approached by the Nazis as they are very interested in his novel. They want him to join the Party as part of an intellectual elite. Halder, up to this point, has not be interested in joining the Nazis thinking that Hitler will not be in power for very long. Halder does reconsider and eventually joins the Party thinking he can influence the Party in a positive way. Well, we all know where this goes. Having read The Cage and Parallel Journeys with my students, I was very interested in the scene that shows The Night of the Broken Glass. The first half hour of this movie was taken up with Halder's family life and his affair with a student. The last hour of the movie really shows how Nazism took hold because so many people did nothing. Good for that reason is worth watching