he Good German is director Steven Soderbergh's sentimental indulgence, a nostalgic throwback to Casablanca, filmed as if it were a 1945 Warner Brothers' picture. More than a thriller, the style is a living mirror of Hollywood's golden age, gorgeously attentive to black-and-white period technique with inspirations coming from some well-known - and less-well-known - thrillers like "Casablanca", "The Third Man" and Billy Wilder's "A Foreign Affair".

Adapted from Joseph Kanon's novel set in Berlin soon after World War II, The Good German aspires to fit into Hollywood's genre of '40s war-themed mystery thrillers, with more than enough Casablanca references. George Clooney is Jake Geismer, a journalist for The New Republic who returns to Berlin, his former posting, shortly after V-E Day and is greeted with widespread corruption from all areas. He's there to cover a diplomatic conference, but he's far more interested in finding out what happened to his old girlfriend Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett).

Eventually, Jake discovers that Lena is currently both a German prostitute and the girlfriend of his venomous army driver, Tully (an explosive Tobey Maguire). Tully is a classic textbook weasely slimeball, lying, cheating, kid in the army motor pool who tries to ooze charm, but his devotion is to his major ties to the black market.

Brandt - marvelously played by Blanchett, who transforms herself into a haunted creature traumatized by World War - has motives and secrets of her own. To make matters worse, the Russians and Americans are both trying to capture her husband Emil (Christian Oliver), due to his involvement in a German rocket program conducted at a concentration camp. Lena, however, insists that he is dead.