The Counterfeiters is loosely based on the first hand account of a Jewish counterfeiter, Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch in the second world war. It tells of the experiences of this expert in the forgery of money who is put into a concentration camp by the Nazis. In the camp, he's recognised and moved onto a secret team that the Nazis are using to produce fake English currency that they plan to use to disrupt the British economy.
The film then follows their progress as they grapple with the ethics of helping the Nazi war effort, in return for preserving their own lives.
This German language film may present more of a challenge to native German speakers than to the subtitle reading likes of myself. The characters of the story come from many different nations and they've been faithfully cast with actors from those same places. This creates a mishmash of accents from people who are definitely giving us German as a second language.
Subtitle reading can often disguise a lot of bad acting as well, but in this film it was still easy for me to spot a couple of great performances; those of our lead and of the camp guard in charge of the outfit, Friedrich Herzog, played by Devid Striesow.
Overall, this is an interesting film that tells a fascinating story in a simple way and it's a very powerful one for it.
The Counterfeiters
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