Not Archeology: The Moral Super-Plot of Indiana Jones

[This post is a part of the Indiana Jones Blog-a-Thon, hosted by Ali Arikan's Cerebral Mastication.]

One aspect of the Indiana Jones series that has always intrigued me is the way that the filmmakers link the episodes together without utilizing the cause and effect of conventional plotting.  When making three (or four) films about the same character, the filmmakers could presumably connect the events of the films together directly, such that an audience will be compelled to return to the series to find out What Happens". Significantly, the Indiana Jones series doesn't do this.

Rather, Spielberg presents each film with a self-contained plot that has little effect on subsequent episodes. There is almost no explicit acknowledgment that the events of the previous films have occurred, save for the occasional wry joke. Despite this absence of a typical through-line for the series, three elements link the films together: 1) their protagonist; 2) their pulp adventure tone; and 3) their use of a supernatural artifact as a MacGuffin. This discrete, episodic style, inspired by the serialized adventure shorts of the 1930s, is a hallmark of the films and a key component of their appeal. It's a style rarely mimicked by other adventure film franchises, although a certain British secret agent originated and still follows it. I can see what's appealing about this sort of structure to the filmmakers as well. Each film sets up and then quickly resolves a conflict about an artifact, freeing Indy—and the filmmakers—to move on to the next chase.

That said, Spielberg does provide us with an unbroken plot arc that ties together the films of the series. However, it is a plot arc that runs not through the film's more tangible elements, but through the inner world of its protagonist. For example, the quest for the Sankara Stones in Temple of Doom has no connection to the quest for the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders. Yet what happens to Indy in Temple does has an effect on the events in Raiders, in the sense that the moral changes wrought by the events in Temple affect his actions in the later films. I think that this isn't immediately apparent to some viewers. The series has suffered some criticism for "resetting" Indy's stance at the beginning of each film, in the sense that he is always somewhat skeptical and world-weary when we meet him. Despite this, I think it's arguable that, for example, the Indy of Raiders is a different man than the Indy of Temple, and this almost certainly affects Raiders' story (albeit in hindsight).

If we rearrange the events of the three extant films into chronological order, plucking out the prelude in Last Crusade and placing it first, then a plot of "character events" emerges, one that spans the series and operates on a higher level than the plot of "substantive events" within each episode. Let's take a quick glance at some events in each episode with an eye toward those with broader moral significance for Indy's character.

The Last Crusade Prelude (1912)

Indy attempts to steal the Cross of Coronado from a group of mercenary relic hunters, professing that he is motivated by academic idealism ("This should be in a museum!").

Significant Moral Lessons: Even individuals motivated by idealism can suffer defeat if they are inexperienced, and particularly if less scrupulous rivals have the backing of corrupt authority figures.

The Temple of Doom (1935)

During the film's opening scenes, Indy attempts to trade the remains of Nurhaci to the gangster Lao Che in exchange for a large diamond. This represents a reversal of Indy's previously professed academic idealism, in that he is gives up an item of cultural value (the ashes) in exchange for an item of monetary value (the diamond). Also note that Indy threatens Willie Scott (an innocent), first to fend off a threat of violence from Lao's son, and then in an attempt to obtain the antidote to a recently ingested poison. This is a fairly callous act that seems out of character with the Indy we were introduced to in Raiders.

After fleeing China, Indy agrees to help an Indian village recover its lingam, stolen by Thuggee cultists that have infiltrated the court of the local maharaja. The village's children have also been kidnapped by the cultists. A clue indicates that the village lingam may be one of the legendary Sankara Stones. Here Indy seems to be motivated by a mixture of compassion for the village and lust for "fortune and glory".

After infiltrating the maharaja's palace, Indy witnesses the Thuggee committing gruesome human sacrifices in a secret temple. He also discovers that the Thuggee have three of the Sankara Stones, including the village lingam. Indy steals the Stones, but is distracted by his discovery that the village children have been enslaved to work the cult's mines. Shortly thereafter, Indy is captured and drugged so that Mola Ram can control his will. He is liberated from this state by Short Round, and eventually Indy rescues the village children and returns the lingam to the village. In doing so, he curses Mola Ram, casting the other two Stones into a river. Happily, returning the village's stone restores its prosperity.

Significant Moral Lessons: Pursuing artifacts as a means to "fortunate and glory" risks a disregard for human suffering. Obsession with fortune and glory is a hallmark of individuals who engage in brutality and depravity, and indulging in such obsessions risks identification with such individuals.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1936)

Faced with evidence that the Third Reich is close to uncovering the Ark of the Covenant, Indy agrees to help the United States government find and secure the Ark before the Nazis do so. Although he has an assurance that his university museum will eventually receive the Ark for its collection, Indy is also thrilled at the prospect of hunting for such a prize.

Following a long struggle and chase for possession of the Ark, the Nazis and Indy's archrival René Belloq arrive at an island with both the Ark and Marion Ravenwood—Indy's friend and lover—in their captivity. Indy threatens to destroy the Ark of the Covenant with a rocket if the Nazis do not release Marion. However, Belloq intuits that Indy is bluffing: he is unwilling to destroy such an important artifact. Indy is quickly captured, and it is the power of the Ark itself that eventually destroys the Nazis.

Significant Moral Lessons: Excessive attachment to the cultural worth of artifacts can inhibit one's judgment and preclude the resolve necessary to ensure the safety of loved ones.

The Last Crusade (1938)

Indy agrees to search for the Holy Grail for private collector Walter Donovan, but only after it is revealed that Indy's father has vanished while searching for the Grail himself. Indy initially conceals his father's Grail Diary from his contact, Elsa Schneider, out of wariness for her motives. Eventually, Elsa—secretly a Nazi—tricks Indy into her confidence. During a chase through the canals of Venice, Indy threatens Grail guardian Kazim with death to obtain knowledge of his father's whereabouts. However, when Kazim refuses to relent and risks both their deaths, Indy backs down.

Indy eventually finds his way to the temple where the Holy Grail is kept. Although he recovers the Grail, Elsa's greed triggers a divine earthquake that claims her life. Similarly, Indy foolishly risks his own death while trying to save the Holy Grail. However, his father persuades him that a mere object, no matter how valuable, is not worth his life.

Significant Moral Lessons: Excessive attachment to the cultural worth (or supernatural power) of artifacts can provoke irrational risks to one's own life.

Despite allegations of the series's episodic "resetting," I think it's apparent that a clear moral plot emerges when the series is approached as a larger work. Indy's struggle against the hobgoblin of "treasure hunter's fever"—an exhilarating lust for and strong attachment to cultural artifacts—is probably the series' most prevailing moral conflict. Although Indy learns to suppress his personal ambitions and to prioritize humanitarianism (Temple), the safety of loved ones (Raiders) and his own life (Crusade) over such treasures, the thrill of artifact discovery and recovery is still seductive to him.

I think this is one reason why criticisms of a neo-colonialist current in the series, while legitimate, don't trouble me to the point of distraction. The cartoonish villainy of the Nazis and cultists serves to draw attention to the true core moral conflict of the series: Indy's battle with his looting and pillaging impulses. The super-plot is not about Stones or Arks or Grails, but about how Indy tries to arrive at a "moral archeology" by negotiating (but never vanquishing) the distractions of avarice, fame, obsession, elitism, and ego.

The Visitor

2007 // USA // Thomas McCarthy // May 10, 2008 // Theatrical Print

B - Thomas McCarthy's The Visitor is a sweet, noble film. Its parameters are comfortable and appealing (and perhaps a bit tired). This is a curious thing in a film that tackles the perils of comfort quite forcefully. The film tells the story of Walter Vale, an economics professor who, by his own admission, is no longer engaged in his own life. We follow Walter's encounter with an immigrant couple—him a Syrian drummer, her a Senegalese jewelry-maker—and the friendships and trials that emerge from this meeting. The film succeeds so effortlessly in sketching a moving story of decent and flawed humanity, that to dub it a "feel-good movie" seems an offense. McCarthy keeps usurping our expectations, and when he slips in a polemic against callous, absurd immigration policies, it doesn't seem out of place.

Walter (Richard Jenkins) is a sympathetic figure, but not particularly likable. He teaches one economics course at his college in Connecticut, recycling his syllabus from previous years. He is ostensibly laboring on a fourth book, although we never see him writing. He drinks wine, listens to classical music, and stares out his office window. His tenured position has apparently left him with only a shadow of ambition. He has been trying to learn piano, possibly to preserve some echo of his deceased musician wife, but as the film opens he dismisses his fourth consecutive instructor in frustration.

Walter travels to New York City for an economics conference, returning to the city apartment he hasn't visited in months. To his shock, he discovers Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira) living there, squatting amid his furniture and the mementos of his wife. Following a tense confrontation, they quickly apologize and hustle out of the apartment. Then Walter changes his mind. He offers to share the apartment until the couple can find other arrangements.

This contrivance is the dramatic version of Meeting Cute, and the participants are a little too movie-friendly in their particulars. Walter is the good-hearted sad sack who needs a spark to transform his life for the better. Tarek and Zainab are strikingly attractive, sincere, and decent. They are also exotic, and therefore fascinating to the humdrum Walter, as well as to the film's likely audience. Especially in its first half, a whiff of lip-service multiculturalism clings to The Visitor. This isn't so much unpleasant as it is unadventurous. "See?," McCarthy seems to be saying, "Immigrants aren't all bad!" The film exhibits at least some self-awareness, however, such as when it provides a brief, discomforting scene with a condescending Ugly American. This highlights Walter's more equitable, evolving stance towards his new friends.

Based solely on a description of its concept, The Visitor might sound like lukewarm film. However, the luster of its storytelling is admirable, and the detours that it takes on its path are genuinely poignant and thoughtful. McCarthy, who also wrote the screenplay, elegantly and convincingly shows how reaching across cultural comfort zones—constructed along racial, religious, class, and linguistic lines—can reap profound emotional rewards.

The talisman of this theme is Tarek's drum. Walter takes a tentative interest in the musician's instrument, and eventually discovers that he has a modest talent and effusive love for drumming. It's telling that McCarthy uses this revelation as a gateway to a closer relationship between Walter and Tarek, and not as an end in itself. Indeed, one of the film's best scenes captures Walter's self-consciousness, and then his joy, as he moves from spectator to musician in an ad hoc public drum circle. Jenkins' spot-on performance and McCarthy commitment to vigorously render the musical experience both serve to check what would otherwise be an overstated metaphor.

Just as the new roommates are acclimating, Tarek is arrested under confused and questionable circumstances. His immigration status is disputed, and he finds himself incarcerated in a private correctional facility in Queens. Both he and a helpless Walter and Zainab come face-to-face with the bleak realities of Arab life in modern America. Tarek's widowed mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), arrives from Michigan, and it is she who then moves into Walter's apartment as they navigate the cruel corridors of immigration law. Despite the trying situation, an affection begins to develop between Walter and Mouna, something not quite friendship and not quite romantic love.

The performances are exceptional, with each actor finding a stance that complements his or her fellows. There is potent chemistry between all the principals that conveys authentic friendship and attraction rather than the traces of a script. Sleiman and Abbass as mother and son are particular standouts, despite the fact that—or perhaps because—they never appear on-screen together. Sleiman renders Tarek as a humorous, proud, mildly careless artist with a generous spirit. Abbass, meanwhile, delivers a believable portrayal of a mature Syrian woman, made guarded and resolute during her years in America.

Throughout the film, McCarthy keeps the tale fresh and endearing by having the nerve to wander away from formulaic plotting. Walter never surpasses his mentor at drumming, nor does the instrument re-invigorate his love for teaching and writing. Tarek puts on a brave face at first, but his charming persona begins to crumble during his detention, and he lashes out at Walter in his anger. Even in its character details, The Visitor is intriguing. Mouna confesses that her favorite CD is Phantom of the Opera, a hint that her exoticism is an illusion concealing ordinary Midwestern tastes.

The film concludes on a note that is simultaneously ambiguous, sentimental, and earnest. It's a credit to McCarthy that The Visitor rises above its movie-of-the-week premise and emerges as a thing of grace and heart. Without question, the film condemns inhumane immigration policies. However, its most enduring face is that of a complex morality tale, one that lauds humility, kindness, and courage as necessary elements for life in modern multi-ethnic America.

Iron Man

2008 // USA // Jon Favreau // May 4, 2008 // Theatrical Print​

B - Entries in the superhero genre have been coming fast and furious lately. Lamentably, for every adaptation that conveys thrills, humor, and heart in an artful way, a slug of forgettable nonsense or outright dreck comes down the studio pipe. Arriving at the bleeding edge of a densely packed summer action film season, Jon Favreau's Iron Man is the latest attempt to breathe twenty-first century cinematic life to a seminal character. The film certainly hits all the right notes for its source material, but it occasionally stumbles into the usual action film sins: predictability, ridiculous dialog, and trite character development. Yet despite these flaws, Iron Man emerges as a delicious work of modern techno-fantasy, and reveals Favreau as an action director of generous skill.

>I never read the Iron Man books back in my hardcore comic fandom days, but the story is familiar to anyone devoted to the Marvel Universe. Anthony Stark, wealthy defense industrialist, constructs a wondrous metallic suit that gives him the ability to soar like a fighter jet, withstand bullets, and unleash a dizzying arsenal of weapons. Fortunately for the residents of the Marvelverse, Stark uses his power armor to serve goodness and justice. It's hard not recognize the archetype-bending appeal of such a character for the Popular Mechanics set. The Smith forges the Sword and, rather than bestowing it on the Hero, becomes the Hero himself. Stark is both a brilliant engineer and fabulously rich. In other words, he is just the sort of eccentric with the talent and resources to turn himself into a superhero as an act of sheer will.

Unlike the wealthy, technology-dependent superhero from that other comic universe, however, Stark's Road-to-Damascus moment is less about personal grief than a humanitarian epiphany, at least as envisioned by Favreau. When Iron Man opens, Stark is already settled into an adolescent-minded middle age. He leads a charmed life filled with computerized comfort and an endless succession of beautiful women. While the Tony Stark of the comics might have been an asshole prior to taking up the superhero mantle, Robert Downey Jr. also adds plenty of his trademark lightning-witted charm. It's a vital and perceptive addition to the character. We want to see the spoiled, negligent Stark receive his comeuppance for his years of bloody war profiteering, but Downey's charisma also ensures that we long for his conversion to heroism.

While demonstrating his company's new missile in Afghanistan, Stark is caught in a convoy ambush and captured by a local warlord. The attack leaves Stark with shrapnel embedded in his chest, fragments that will work their way into his heart over time. That is, they would without the powerful electro-magnet—powered by a car battery—that was hastily installed in his chest by his doctor cellmate, Yinsen (Shaun Toub). Stark's reputation has preceded him to the mountains of Afghanistan. The warlord, Raza (Faran Tahir), knows exactly who he has captured, and he orders Stark to construct a duplicate of his company's new missile using spare parts and scrap.

This is roughly where any lingering believability goes out the window. This is a comic book movie, however, and Favreau and Downey both display a talent for rendering absurdities in a giddy, compelling way. Using missile parts, Stark recreates his company's "arc-reactor" in miniature, a sort of perpetual motion energy source to replace his crude life-sustaining device. He and Yinsen then labor to build a means of escape, a suit of robotic armor powered by that same arc-reactor. Makes sense, right? It's the sort of ludicrous leap that seems perfectly sensible within a comic book reality.

I'm not spoiling much by revealing that Stark eventually flees the Afghanistan caves with the aid of his prototype suit. His captivity has changed him. Publicly, Stark abandons his flippant jingoism, resolving that he is morally culpable for the destruction wreaked by his company's weapons. The rest of the film mainly revolves around Stark's ambition to develop a refined version of the suit in his engineering lab, and the complications and opposition he encounters when he deploys it in the service of a private, righteous war. He is forced to fend off concern and suspicion from his allies: capable personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow), friend and Air Force liaison Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard), and Stark Industries executive Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges).

Favreau mostly sticks to the established superhero origin formula. He doesn't do much that's surprising with it, but he often does it with a kind of high-octane grace that's enviable. What he does exceptionally well is shoot and edit his action sequences with an eye for beauty, coherence, and drama. It's an all-too-rare skill, and to see a comedy director like Favreau rise to the occasion is... well, impressive isn't the right word. It's thrilling. Not momentous, mind your, in the sense of an auteur's breakout film, but it nonetheless inspires excitement about the future of action cinema under Favreau's hand.

Iron Man's visual effects are quite remarkable, and they expertly serve to suck the viewer into its glossy reality. It's easy to accept the film's technological hand-waving when old school effects and computer wizardry blend together so seamlessly. Favreau expertly taps into the visual wonder of his story's science fiction foundation, never gaping with his camera, but coaxing the viewer to gape. This is a vital distinction.

Although Favreau generally raises the stakes in terms of the action, he works by the numbers in most other respects. There's a blossoming love interest, a secret betrayal, a climax dependent on vague technological tension, and so on. The dialogue is fairly groan-worthy in places, although to his credit, Downey works his wry magic on all of his lines, no matter how silly. The supporting cast is really in place to convey broadly drawn personas, and they're serviceable enough in this respect. Unfortunately Favreau commits other screenwriting offenses, such as introducing plot points and then abandoning them, and going adorable when he has no right to.

Iron Man feels like a middling superhero movie in some ways, but it's hard to disregard the ways that it is exceptional. Favreau strikes a careful balance between gleeful, engrossing action sequences and an empathic exploration of his protagonist's transformation. The filmmakers never fully explore the intriguing themes that the story begs, particularly the righteous elitism and technocrat-warrior impulses in Stark's character. These elements just sort of glide beneath the surface of the film, acknowledged but never truly engaged. Still, such subtle nods seem like virtues when I imagine the soulless exercise that Iron Man could have been in the hands of a lesser director. And, to be fair, the story of Iron Man doesn't require the operatic intensity of, say, Batman. Rather, it taps into the technophile's lust for powerful and shiny toys, accented with twinges of American guilt and compassion. Favreau—and Downey—accomplish this tone so precisely, I can't quibble too much with the film's tendency to stick to superhero movie conventions.

The Duchess of Langeais

2007 // France - Italy // Jacques Rivette // April 26, 2008 // Theatrical Print

D - The Duchess of Langeais brings to mind a fundamental question about film quality: Can a movie be reasonably well-shot and well-acted in the service of Very Serious Themes, and yet still be a dull, dreadful mess? Are the two mutually exclusive? Last year, Pascale Ferran's Lady Chatterley, a film that seems increasingly like a fumbled embarrassment with the passage of time, suggested that the two aspects could coexist in the same film. Now here is another French adaptation of a revered author's work that evokes a comparably contradictory sensation. In this case, the author is Honore de Balzac, and the director is New Wave icon Jacques Rivette. I have a hard time calling this a Bad Film, but it is almost certainly a failure. If I squint very hard I can almost be convinced of the phantoms of an engaging work, and maybe even understand—but not share—the praise that this film has received from my admired critics such as Glenn Kenny and Noel Murray. Yet I can't lie to myself: I just don't see it.

The film opens in the early nineteenth century. Guillaume Depardeiu—son of, yes, that Depardieu—portrays Armand de Montriveau, a French officer on a diplomatic visit to Spanish Majorca. While listening to a cloistered order of nuns sing at a local convent, Armand is overcome with emotion at the sound of one sister's voice. It is the sound of a woman he knows, a woman that has haunted him for years. Armand makes arrangements to confront the nun and confirm his suspicions, and the film then returns to their first meeting, a flashback that will comprise most of the film. The melodious nun was once Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne Balibar), a comely Duchess wed to a man the viewer never meets. She moves through the splendor of Parisian aristocratic society, sly and moody and slender as a statue. At an evening ball, she chances upon Armand, a wounded war hero recently returned from exploits in the heart of Africa.

There is attraction. She is intrigued by this worldly man, rougher than the powdered gentility she is accustomed to. And although initially standoffish, Armand is quickly and completely smitten with her. Unfortunately there is a disparity of passion and a cultural gulf in their relationship that leads almost immediately to frustration and conflict. Armand is forthright and savage in matters of the heart. He declares on the first night that he loves Antoinette, begging (and later demanding) that she reciprocate his affection. Antoinette is flighty, alternately preoccupied with coquettish games, social propriety, and religious guilt. These people, however strong their attraction might be, are not likely to share a happy ending.

It's a challenge to detect anything instructive or even coherent in the way that Armand and Antoinette behave. Rivette approaches the cruel game of the relationship is a way that is unaccountably distant, shapeless, and meandering. Despite the film's apparent interest in the monstrous character of aristocratic gamesmanship, the viewer doesn't see much of that world, or the evidence of its immorality. Too much of this film consists of Depardieu and Balibar alone together, urgently delivering lots and lots of obtuse and mannered dialogue. The dialogue isn't awful, per se. On the contrary, it's often quite poetic. It's just unfocused, rambling, and far less torrid than it imagines. I had difficulty discerning the characters' motivations from moment to moment, save for the plainest and most understandable impulses. (Armand's frustration at Antoinette's dithering at least evokes some sympathy.)

Don't misunderstand: the performances are fine enough. Depardieu in particular displays a flair for conveying Armand's strange blend of longing and loutishness. And that's another problem. Armand is a thick-headed, sadistic, selfish brute, while Antoinette is a creepy, maladjusted, juvenile flake. I'm supposed to care if such people find love together?

The most frustrating facet of The Duchess is that while it reveals scattered flashes of delicious drama, these moments never culminate in anything that justifies the heaping helpings of blandness. It's not a good sign when the film's most powerful emotional moment occurs ten minutes into its running time. Rivette finds little nodes of electricity here and there that hint at his august and allegedly potent cinematic storytelling talent. (This is my first of his films.) When a vengeful Armand ominously and obliquely warns Antoinette at another ball, "Don't touch the axe," the viewer begins to feel her rising, clinging dread. There are some juicy twists to the plot, but these seem oddly diminished in their impact due to the film's overall ambivalence about its characters' virtues or the cruelty of their circumstances. By the time the bitter irony of the film's ending is revealed, my empathy with anything going on up on the screen had long expired.

To the credit of the filmmakers, The Duchess is a gorgeous film. The sets and costumes are all richly detailed, giving off just the right glow of dazzling beauty and moribund excess. I should also point out that Rivette and cinematographer William Lubtchansky exhibit an uncommon skill: they know how to light period interiors in a manner that is utterly authentic. I can't think of a film in recent memory with such a convincing shroud of pre-Industrial gloom. Now that I've said something nice, can I talk for a moment about the irritating sound design? I'm not sure what possessed Rivette to highlight every single creak in the floorboards when any character takes a step. Is this a metaphor for the warped and incessant character of French aristocratic society? All I know is that twenty minutes in, with the creaking actually obscuring the dialogue, I wanted to slap him.

At best, The Duchess of Langeais is a visually exciting muddle that aims high and falls flat. It's really the French literary equivalent of a big, dumb, superhero movie, and that's mighty disappointing. Want to see a masterpiece about the institutionalized malice of aristocratic society? Do yourself a favor and rent The Age of Innocence instead.

Shine a Light

2008 // USA //  Martin Scorsese // April 12, 2008 // IMAX Theatrical Print

B - Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light, depicting a two-night Rolling Stones performance at the Beacon Theater, aims for something a little higher than mutual artistic backslapping, just not much higher. This is Stones worship at its purest, but that purity is fairly stunning. The undisciplined tendency that has at times infected Scorsese's more recent dramatic work is nowhere to be found in this endeavor. If nothing else, Shine a Light is a work of cinematic virtuosity. Shot with plethora of cameras placed jaw-droppingly close to the action, it boasts an intimacy that vividly captures the Stones' everlasting fire and their sheer joy at performing. It's dizzying to contemplate the challenge that this film must have been to edit. Scorsese doesn't strive for the genuine exploration of Gimme Shelter, but he does utilize the medium to discover something akin to a live concert experience, yet also something different and distinctly cinematic. Shine a Light has an undeniable and sustaining energy, but there's not much to it other than great music from artists you'll never be this close to again. If that's enough for you—and it should be—you'll regret missing an opportunity to catch it in IMAX.

The Counterfeiters

2007 // Austria - Germany // Stefan Ruzowitzky // April 10, 2008 // Theatrical Print

C - The Counterfeiters presents the morally knotted tale of Operation Bernhard, the Nazis' effort to reproduce the British pound using Jewish counterfeiters. The film centers on the experience of master counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, portrayed with grim precision by Austrian actor Karl Markovics. Like most capable dramas about World War II, the film treads a satisfactory balance between the shorthand characterization necessary for a feature length production and pockets of richer exploration. Director Stefan Ruzowitzky never works any real cinematic magic, but he does the minimum the material deserves by telling a fascinating story quite well. The counterfeiters' surreal existence as valuable but despised craftsmen is the story's most appealing angle, but it remains somewhat underdeveloped in favor of stock dramatic tension and twists. Ruzowitzky finds some intriguing approaches here and there, as when he highlights the fractures between subgroups within the Jewish prisoner population (habitual criminals, Communists, etc.) Still, there's something more than a little disappointing about a film where the concept is more electric than the execution. In the end, The Counterfeiters is a notable addition to the swelling body of Holocaust dramas, if only for its unusual subject matter and fine performances.