Nuremberg

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The trial of Nazi war criminals following the Allied victory in Europe in World War II is dramatized in this uneven TV movie starring Alec Baldwin as Robert Jackson, a U.S. Supreme Court justice who served as the chief prosecutor for the Allies. The gravity of the controversial concept of having a war crimes trial, and the political maneuvering between Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union that made it possible, is explained fairly well in the early portions of the film, even if Baldwin at times delivers lines that seem to have been lifted from a high school history textbook. Scenes of Nazi officers being rounded up and jailed are evocative, as are scenes of a ruined Germany. But a subplot involving Baldwin's character having an extramarital affair with his secretary, played by Jill Hennessy, seems utterly extraneous. Perhaps the intent was to show that even someone taking a moral stand on a global stage can be flawed, but Baldwin's Supreme Court justice faces no consequences from his infidelity. Baldwin dominates the courtroom scenes as the outraged prosecutor, while Hennessy has little to do beyond looking great in her 1940s wardrobe. And as the film progresses the brilliant performance of Brian Cox as Hermann Goering simply seizes all attention, as Hitler's deputy is uncannily portrayed as a brilliant manipulator to the very end. Nuremberg is consistently interesting, and to its credit it does contain much serious material on the Nazi war crimes, but it is in the end a flawed production.