The Counterfeiters

Germany, 2007

Director:

Stefan Ruzowitzky

Starring:

Matt: -

Adam: B-

This German tale of a wartime concentration camp counterfeit operation is based on a true story, but has more incredible turns of fortune than almost anything you could make up.

Karl Markovics stars as Solomon Sorowitsch - Germany's most notorious and wanted counterfeiter. At the start of the film Solomon is arrested and thrown into a concentration camp alongside thousands of fellow Jews. However, his illegal expertise prove to be his saviour as Solomon is plucked from among the prisoners and taken to a section of the camp where the prisoners are fed and housed in more comfortable conditions. In return for this better treatment, and for being kept alive, they are to forge the dollar and pound in order to fund the Nazi's war effort.

The Counterfeiters benefits from a quiet and restrained central performance from Markovics. Solomon is subject to a pretty interesting dilemma. If he refuses to help the Nazis he'll be killed. If he helps them, he's funding the war effort of a country that has murdered so many of his fellow Jews. For one of the prisoners, staying alive under such circumstances is not worth it, but Solomon simply craves "one more day".

AL