Trailer Watch: Viggo Mortensen is ‘Good’

Posted by Robin Ruinsky (robin@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 25, 2008

A new trailer has emerged today for Good, a new film starring Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs which based on a popular London play by C.P. Taylor that opened in 1999.

John Halder, Viggo Mortensen, is a professor, a “good” man with a wife and children. His best friend, Maurice, Jason Isaacs, is Jewish, a fact that Halder never gave a second thought to in all the years of their friendship. But Halder is about to be singled out, tapped for a role in the new world order put in place by the newly installed Nazi Party in Germany.

Halder’s moral blindness, his desire not to rock the boat, to fit in with the new regime, makes him the perfect candidate for membership in the Nazi Party. A professor of literature he’s written a novel sympathetic to euthanasia. It and he are the perfect fit for the Nazi propaganda machine. The “good” man will become the “good” Nazi. Halder doesn’t anticipate that “good” men can step onto a slippery slope and slide down without once trying to dig in their heels to stop their descent.

Have a look at the first Good trailer below:

The film, at least from the trailer, looks intriguing and well acted. Viggo Mortensen is the perfect actor to take on the role of Halder. Mortensen has an ability to portray complex human beings. He doesn’t shy away from playing someone who is far less than truly good.

Director Vicente Amorim has no English language films on his credits. It appears this is his first big film and he’s taken on quite a challenge. I hope he has succeeded. The subject of the evil that even “good” men do, is important and timely. The drama of one man’s fall into an abyss of evil, dragging down those around him is a fascinating story with great dramatic potential and relevance.

What do you think of the first trailer for Good?


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  • Does this movie look good or what?
  • Nevernude
    wait a minute...
    this is a film set in Germany with supposedly German persons everywhere so why the f**k is everyone speaking English?!
  • Aleric
    Because it is made for an American audiance and most don't like to read subtitles. I personally think it is more authentic to have them speaking the native language, but popular rules out.
  • It's not a foreign language film. The actors wouldn't be speaking German.
    But I'm assuming what you're really asking is why the actors used a British dialect.
    A British dialect is sometimes used as a "neutral" dialect.
    May sound odd but it's treated that way sometimes.
    Obviously a choice was made not to use a German dialect.
  • Nevernude
    :@ Robin Ruinsky

    no no im not questioning the "british" accent (did anybody detect a british accent?) ", there is no freaking such thing! Im British and the accents here are broken down into regions, generally, there are a wide array of accents in Britain therefore i can quite understand this generalisation of the accents here. )

    anyway, my point is i really wish native dialects would be used in movies which center on foreign lands. example; the Benicio Del Toro movie, Che, where the native language is spoken. For me, it adds to the authenticy. I don't mind reading subtitles and i dont think any filmgoer should either.
  • Well, I don't mind listening to movies in English, even when we're talking to Italians and Germans, etc. No big deal. When Mel Gibson filmed 2 different films in their native and real languages, everyone made fun of him.

    Filming in a foreign language limits casting - Viggo doesn't speak German and probably couldn't learn enough German in time to make the film and act at the same level he does in English.
  • It sounded like they were using what I would call a British stage dialect. I know that British dialects are very varied.
    I've seen this done before.
  • Mariana
    I agree with what someone said before - perhaps the movie is in English so more "known" faces could be casted; I agree that when the movie is in the native tongue it gets much better, but sometimes it's hard to do it (well, sometimes it backfires, like "Memoirs of a Geisha"; the dialogues sucked because they had to adapt it for all the Asian actresses who couldn't speak it very well). Since I'm not American, I wouldn't know if this choice was made regarding the preference of the US audiences for dubbed/English-spoken movies (I hate it when they're dubbed, though).

    I'm probably the only one who's more excited about "Good" because it features Jason Isaacs than Viggo Mortensen. Jason doesn't get enough attention from the media, in my opinion.
  • I can't wait for this movie to come out. Viggo chooses his movie roles very carefully. He's never made a movie that I did nt enjoy from beginning to end. Unlike some actors that are in it for the $$$$. Viggo's choices (in my opinion) reflects how he wants to grow as an actor. Unlike some actors who play the same character in every movie.
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