Russell Crowe’s performance in the new World War II drama Nuremberg has floored film critics, with many eagerly predicting he will earn his fourth Oscar nomination for his “towering” and “superb” portrayal of Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring.
Directed by James Vanderbilt (Truth) and out in theaters Friday, Nuremberg is about U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (played by Rami Malek), who gets locked in a psychological showdown with accused Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring (Crowe) as the Nuremberg trials are set to begin.
While the movie itself has divided critics — it currently holds a 73 percent on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes — they at least appear to unanimously agree that Crowe gives one of his best performances in years.
“Vanderbilt’s film hinges on Göring being painted as a sinner and as a saint, equally,” TheWrap’s Matthew Creith wrote. “But Crowe never wavers in taking Göring to heights unseen by the actor’s film career in quite some time, as he interprets the Nazi as a towering figure in a brilliant performance.”
“Crowe gives a towering, subtly frightening performance as Göring,” Roger Ebert’s Zachary Lee lauded. “He’s dangerously charming, humble, and suave, even while his egotistical nature is so baked in that he can’t imagine a possibility where he’s convicted and on trial.”
Brian Truitt of USA Today heaped praise on Malek’s “effective” portrayal as Kelley, yet it was Crowe whom he found to be “even more superb — and ready to crash awards season.”
Variety’s Owen Gleiberman similarly opined that Malek “brings a conversational energy to the role, also brings a weird insecurity; along the way, his Kelley almost seems to forget what his job is.” However, “Crowe, in contrast, acts with consummate command even as Göring, by design, keeps the audience at arm’s length,” he added.
The Associated Press’s Lindsey Bahr went so far as to label it “some of [Crowe’s] best work in years,” adding, he is “well suited to playing this charismatic, larger-than-life egoist.”
“Crowe understands the bombast it must have taken to keep a man like that going,” Matthew Jackson of the AV Club noted.
It’s been more than 20 years since 61-year-old Crowe earned major awards season buzz for a film role. At the height of his career in the early 2000s, he earned a string of Best Actor Oscar nominations, beginning with his 2000 nomination for The Insider. The next year, he won his first Oscar for Gladiator, followed by a third nomination in 2002 for A Beautiful Mind.
Crowe went on to star in more major films, including Robin Hood (2010), Les Misérables (2012) and Noah (2014), but in recent years has seen a shift toward smaller, less acclaimed projects.
Nuremberg premieres in theaters Friday.
