STUDIO: Sony
RELEASE DATE: August 5, 2008
STARRING: August Diehl, Marie Baumer, Dolores Chaplin, Devid Striesow, Martin Bramback, and Karl Markovics
WRITTEN BY: Stefan Ruzowitzky
DIRECTED BY: Stefan Ruzowitzky
FEATURES: Commentary with Director Stefan Ruzowitzky
Making of The Counterfeiters
Adolf Burger's Historical Artifacts
Q&A with Stefan Ruzowitzky
An Interview with Director Stefan Ruzowitzky
An Interview with Adolf Burger
An Interview with Karl Markovics
Deleted Scenes

The DVD cover for The Counterfeiters is one of the most ridiculous that I've ever seen (and I've reviewed hundreds). There are three pictures on the front of the Blu-Ray edition - a well-dressed woman stands behind a sitting man on a gorgeous beach, what most would assume is the same woman looks sultry on the left side of the top half of the cover while a man suspiciously hold a magnifying glass on the other. The tagline reads "It takes a clever man to make money. It takes a genius to stay alive." Anyone who saw only the over with no other knowledge oft his Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film would assume that it was a thriller or a mystery or maybe even a James Bond movie. While there are undeniably elements of this very good film that feel like a thriller, it's 100% drama and you'd have to look at the back of the box before you'd realize that it's a human story about some unbelievable people set during the holocaust. Get past the bait-and-switch of the cover and actually watch The Counterfeiters and you'll realize that this little movie is one of the better WWII films of the last few years, thriller or not. I don't think it quite deserved the Academy Award over some of the amazing foreign films of 2007 but that doesn't mean that this isn't a good film and definitely worthy of your time.

The Counterfeiters tells the true story of Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (the fascinating-looking Karl Markovics), a swindler who lived the high life in Germany before the war. He had fame, women and money, most of which he made himself. Sally was busted for trying to create his own American dollar and found himself in a concentration camp. Years later, Salomon is transferred to another camp and given a choice - help the bankrupt German army counterfeit the English pound and the American dollar or risk death in the camp. Sorowitsch is put with a specialized group of prisoners and given special treatment in return for his skills, but he soon realizes that he's actually helping to fund the war that's keeping him captive. What can he do? What SHOULD he do? Would you risk your own death and sabotage the effort, knowing that doing so might defeat the German army? It's a daring and risky movie with a fascinating subject about some truly brave people.

Stefan Ruzowitzky succeeds with The Counterfeiters by presenting the film in a very realistic, non-melodramatic manner. A lot of it is shot with handheld cameras in a very gritty style. With extreme close-ups and random violence, The Counterfeiters is riveting cinema. It's book-ended by scenes after the war (that woman and the beach of the cover) which are dramatically ineffective. Following Sally after the camp might have been interesting, but it feels half-conceived, a dramatic book-end that's not really necessary to the narrative. But it's a minor complaint about an excellent film.

Sony still leads the way when it comes to video and audio in Blu-Ray. They consistently provide the best technical treatments, so it's almost redundant to say that The Counterfeiters looks and sounds great in 1080p and with Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound. The special features are even more interesting with an amazing interview with one of the real-life major characters of the plot and the man on whose book the film was based, Adolf Burger. Other making-of featurettes are far-more-detailed than usually provided with foreign film releases and a commentary by the director is a welcome surprise. Everything about The Counterfeiters - technical specs, special features, the film itself - makes this Blu-Ray disc worth your time. Just get past the cover.