Nuremberg review – Russell Crowe is top notch as an on-trial Göring but Rami Malek lets side down

<p>Crowe is wittily cast as the pompous Nazi in this tale from behind the scenes at the Nuremberg trials, but Malek is deeply silly as army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley</p><p>Here is a movie promising the juiciest of real-life stories from history. Before the Nazi war-crime trials at Nuremberg that started in November 1945, an obscure US army psychiatrist called Dr Douglas Kelley was ordered to interview the prisoners, chief among whom was Hermann Göring. This was supposedly to establish their fitness for trial, but was really intended to gain inside information as to how they would conduct their defence. Russell Crowe is rather wittily cast as the portly, pompous Reichsmarschall Göring; it’s the best he’s been for a long time, a sly and cunning manipulator playing psychological cat-and-mouse with the Americans.</p><p>But there is a deeply silly performance from Rami Malek as Kelley: an eye-rolling, enigmatic-smiling, scenery-nibbling hamfest which makes it look as if Malek is auditioning for the role of Hitler in The Producers. Leo Woodall plays the American army translator Howie Triest, Michael Shannon is the US chief prosecutor Robert H Jackson and Richard E Grant is British Tory MP David Maxwell-Fyfe who (for all that his postwar career as home secretary was notorious for the homophobic persecution, which helped drive Alan Turing to his grave), is actually shown to be crucial in cross-examining the Nazis. All of these actors do their best, but the figure of Kelley himself is a ridiculous cartoon.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/14/nuremberg-review-russell-crowe-is-top-notch-as-an-on-trial-goring-but-rami-malek-lets-side-down">Continue reading...</a>