Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

MartinHafer There have been countless films about WWII and the holocaust--lots. I have watched many of them but my family refuses. As my oldest daughter has said many times "I know what happened then. It was awful and evil. And, I've seen enough of them!". However, "The Counterfeiters" is not just another film about the holocaust but discussed an obscure but true story about a small number of Jewish prisoners who were able to spare their lives by working WITH the Nazis. Let me explain. The Nazis came up with a plan to destroy the economies of their enemies. First, they wanted to produce tons and tons of British pounds and flood the market with them. Then, do the same with the American dollar. And, while most may not know it, they were successful in producing perfect qualities pounds and dollars. This film is about how they did it and why, ultimately, the plan didn't change the outcome of the war.The film has some wonderful acting, a taut script and recreates the horror of the concentration camps. It's not pleasant but it IS also very fascinating--particularly the story of the hero (??) of the film--a cheap criminal with a talent for forgeries. Well worth seeing and a film that took the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

billcr12 The Counterfeiters is based on the memoirs of Adolf Berger, a man who was imprisoned for forging baptismal papers for Jews during World War II. It starts with a German guy paying cash at an upscale hotel in Monte Carlo right after the war. A female companion finds numbers tattooed on his arm. It flashes back to 1936, where Salomon Sorowitsch is a forger of passports and money. He is caught and sent to a labor camp, and then to a concentration camp. While there, he does sketches, which are seen by prison guards who ask for family portraits in exchange for extra food. His talents noticed by the higher ups, and he is teamed with others with artistic abilities to forge currencies. The US dollar is the main one, as the theory is to flood America with the fake paper in order to destroy the economy. They first successfully duplicate the British Pound, but intentionally delay their work on the American greenback. Eventually, the Russians arrive and liberate the camp, and this leads to a confrontation with fellow prisoners. The film ends back in Monte Carlo and I was impressed with the story, from beginning to end.

vostf I perfectly know that a Foreign Academy Award is indication a movie has great production values, but maybe nothing more. The people entitled to vote for this award make the winner a reflection of themselves: somewhat pedantic with a slight touch of low-key stock sentimentalism. Ah, and based-on-a-true-storism is great for both pedantic and sentimentalist easy-flowing images.I should have know better. Yet another movie about concentration camps, and a Hollywood-sunshine approved one! Well, I had been learning some fascinating facts about Operation Bernhard in recent years and I thought this movie would offer a tremendous depiction of it. I haven't read the book - which is not widely available in English - and it seems it wasn't the most interesting way to make an exciting movie about Operation Bernhard.Wonder why the movie barely fills a 90-minute spot? Because it has very little stuff to tell. It pales in comparison with the most emotionally powerful PoW/concentration camps movies, and it pales in comparison with the breathtaking suspense of the best documentaries describing Operation Bernhard.IMO the "rest of the world Oscar" and the Operation Bernhard premise don't count among the good reasons to watch Die Fälscher.

Movie_Muse_Reviews The Holocaust has been revisited in film so many times that I imagine the first thing German-born film actors ask themselves upon meeting is "which film(s) were you a Nazi in?" The crimes of the Nazi Party and the German soldiers carrying out its mission to revive Germany through the mass killing of Jews and other "invalids" are so unfathomable and powerful that filmmakers and storytellers can't help but find so many ways to tell complex stories of morality and human survival."The Counterfeiters" is another one of these films, but lack of originality is absolutely the only knock against it."Counterfeiters" focuses on a group of Jews assembled by the Nazis to create mass quantities of Ally currency to be used to decimate Ally economies. It's the same type of lens on the Holocaust, but a different "edition" so to speak. Yet the script is immaculate, the drama understated and effective, the plot completely engaging, and best of all: it's a Holocaust film under two hours -- and a great one at that. It begins with a morally complex main character, the crooked-faced Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), who before the war was a professional counterfeiter, one with considerable artistic talent who chose the more "financially sound" career. Simply put, he's a criminal and the crimes of the Holocaust manage to make us sympathetic to him. He's an honest criminal, but a criminal no less. As the leader of his counterfeiting team in a way, following his point of view is extremely interesting. There is his survival instinct, his pride over the work even though it's helping the Nazis and characters such as his friend Burger the printer (Adolf Burger, who wrote the book the film is based on), who pressures him not to do the work and risk death on principle.These are all familiar Holocaust film themes. There are the Jews who will do anything to stay alive, helping the Nazis or doing whatever they bid for an extra scrap of food and soft beds and those who would be willing martyrs, dying before they stoop to a certain level or help a Nazi.The difference is in the execution. Stefan Ruzowitzky has done an incredible job adapting Burger's incredible true account. He's identified the key moments and turning points and crafted ideal scenes to help build the plot up. He wastes no time getting to the point. The scenes are short and sweet, giving us bursts of information, emotion and symbolism, sometimes in just a minute. Directing off his own script, he directs us to key visuals that convey all that information like a leftover piece of food that conveys the hunger not always at the forefront of a scene. The pacing is exceptional, especially for a Holocaust film, and though some of the scenes are brutal it doesn't hit the audience over the head with scenes of terror and emotion that go straight for the heartstrings. It's much more subtle and effectively so.It's hard to visit yet another Holocaust film, but "The Counterfeiters" is worth it because of Ruzowitzky's fine craftsmanship and its overall subtly. It's the impact of a Holocaust film without all the emotionally distressful scenes and the screaming and the heartfelt violin music. The unique story of Sorowtisch and these group of Jews who are given a bit more privilege yet in turn forced to wrestle with a bit of moral guilt makes it a warranted trip into a oft-visited historical genre.~Steven CVisit my site http://moviemusereviews.com