Salomon 'Sally' Sorowitsch is an expert counterfeiter whose luck runs out when he overrules his survival instinct for one more roll in the sack. Unfortunately for him, this is 1930s Germany and he will serve his time in a concentration camp rather than prison. Sally, however, treats them as one and the same, and it is his prison code of working an angle while giving others their place that sees him survive, and flourish, if such a term fits the meagre circumstances.
Prison code also means never snitching, and it is this dilemma that will decide his fate.
Based on a true story, The Counterfeiters leans more towards prison drama than out-and-out Holocaust movie. The horrors of the camps intrudes only occasionally - that is the guilt-ridden dilemma of these prisoners - and mostly off-screen, as when the god-forsaken 'shoe squad' march next door, and we witness one of them being executed only by virtue of the bullets that ricochet through the fence and endanger the precious forgery team. There is division in the ranks of the Jew forgers, between those who want to survive and those who want to sabotage the war effort. As the war draws to a close, their aims slowly converge.
Karl Markovics excels as street-wise habitual criminal Sally. He scoffs at left-wing ideologue Burger, believing his jailbird instincts will get him through this ordeal. The wake-up call comes when he is cleaning the latrine, on his knees, and Hauptscharführer Holst, the camp's chief sadist, let's him know in no uncertain terms how he regards his contribution to the war effort, and indeed his very humanity.
The film bookends its opening and closing with Sally in Monaco, having survived the war, ready to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. Needless to say, the monetary gain soon loses its allure.
Well acted, technically excellent, The Counterfieters entertains rather than provokes thought, but is worth viewing nonetheless.
Prison code also means never snitching, and it is this dilemma that will decide his fate.
Based on a true story, The Counterfeiters leans more towards prison drama than out-and-out Holocaust movie. The horrors of the camps intrudes only occasionally - that is the guilt-ridden dilemma of these prisoners - and mostly off-screen, as when the god-forsaken 'shoe squad' march next door, and we witness one of them being executed only by virtue of the bullets that ricochet through the fence and endanger the precious forgery team. There is division in the ranks of the Jew forgers, between those who want to survive and those who want to sabotage the war effort. As the war draws to a close, their aims slowly converge.
Karl Markovics excels as street-wise habitual criminal Sally. He scoffs at left-wing ideologue Burger, believing his jailbird instincts will get him through this ordeal. The wake-up call comes when he is cleaning the latrine, on his knees, and Hauptscharführer Holst, the camp's chief sadist, let's him know in no uncertain terms how he regards his contribution to the war effort, and indeed his very humanity.
The film bookends its opening and closing with Sally in Monaco, having survived the war, ready to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. Needless to say, the monetary gain soon loses its allure.
Well acted, technically excellent, The Counterfieters entertains rather than provokes thought, but is worth viewing nonetheless.