would you recommend this film-why/why not?

No. I like old b&w movies, but this one was hard on the eyes. It seems that the old b&w movies were lit better, the lighting on TGG was over-stylishly noir. Second, the story was confusing. It's only in the last 1/4th of it that I started to understand what the big fuss is. Third, as has been said in other threads, Tobey Maguire was miscast, I was thankful he wasn't in the whole movie, and while Cate Blanchett does a good job, it would have been better if a German actress had the role-apparently, Clooney's name wasn't enough to convince the studio to make this movie. Fourth, it was depressing from start to finish.

i would if your into noir films

It's terrible. After the first 10 minutes I wound up laughing because the acting and script were so bad. Tobey Maguire has never been worse and everyone else seems lost and just meandering through. It's no wonder tyhe film got buried under the rug and went to dvd so fast.

Nothing is as it seems so I wouldn't judge by what you think you see.

I would not recommend it because I totally concur with the others regarding the miscasting of Toby Maguire as Tully. Even with the foul language, sex, and violence he seemed a little too squeaky clean for a degenerate soldier. Also, the movie is indeed slow, painfully slow. I nodded off too many times to count. Only the dramatic Thomas Newman score could wake me up. Finally, I had a real problem with Capt. Geismer constantly getting the crap kicked out of him. Doesn't he know that officers even know how to defend themselves?

rene - I guess I'm just not on the same wave length as everybody else on these boards. I loved this movie and I thought Tobey Maguire was great. Firstly, I love black and white and secondly I thought the story was very poignant and the movie was very well done depicting it. I haven't read the book, so I can't compare, but 9 times out of 10 the books are always better. There is only so much a film maker can do in a two hour presentation. George Clooney was, in my humble opinion, not at the top of his game, but Cate Blanchett was phenomenal. Marlene Dietrich would have been proud. I say go for it, give it a try, and I would also suggest to watch it twice, it has many moments of "soft" dialogue that one can miss the first time around. Much of that dialogue is crucial to the plot.

I liked it very much... certainly not perfect, but how many movies are these days???


>>...regarding the miscasting of Toby Maguire as Tully...<<

This i do agree with, I did not like him in that role, but it did not ruin the movie for me... I can't stand George Clooney, but still liked the movie.

I think the word "mediocre" was coined for films like this. Not positively annoying, not quite ridiculous, but utterly dull from start to finish. I didn`t quite care about Clooney, the girl or Maguire, I didn`t understand why did he take all that pain for what I perceived as an uninteresting woman, I didn`t feel engaged in their love story. The plot was poorly explained and wasn`t so intriguing, after all.
I didn`t understand the point of trying so hard to mimic movies from the 40`s, including even the opening credits, and then spoil it all by including foul language, sex, explicit violence and still some other modern features.
The greatest merit in the movie is, in my view, the depiction of an interesting historical period, when post-war world was being built upon the ruins of Europe. The immoral covenants between the conquering powers are quite accurately portrayed.
In a nutshell: dull, confusing and slightly boring film

Just watch it. I didn't like it.Cate is one of my favorite actress and she is horrible in this movie. Just a stinker, but there are so many horribles movies out there, it didn't bother me a bit. IT didn't bother me a bit if you don't agree with me either. Just go and watch it if you thought about this movie. Or you can easily skip this movie and don't miss a thing.

My life isn't any better than yours.