Stefan Ruzowitsky’s Holocaust survival tale, loosely based on fact, tells how “the world’s best counterfeiter” (the long, long face of Karl Markovics) eases his existence in a Nazi concentration camp by suppressing his scruples and aiding the German war effort, speedily mastering the British pound, but then dilly-dallying over the U.S. dollar, theoretically affecting the outcome of the war. It is a passably interesting tale to tell, a new path through old territory, but the interest is rather in the tale than in the telling. At any number of stopping points along the path, the sights are liable to seem all too familiar (the bullet in the head, etc.), never mind the refreshing route that led there. And the coarse, raw, desaturated image, whether a chosen cliché or an imposed hardship, is at no point much to look at, a harsh thing to say about a motion picture. (2007) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.