Edgy 'The Counterfeiters' tells of World War II fraud

It was one of World War II's most audacious frauds. Had it commenced earlier, before the tide had turned, who knows what 11th-hour damage it might have caused the Allies.

In the waning days of the war, with Germany on the retreat, the Nazis "rescued" a battery of Jewish concentration camp internees and relocated them to a comparatively posh compound where they were coerced into employing their singular skills as technicians. Operation Berhard was a plot to produce fake foreign currency — British pounds, followed by American dollars — flood the market and create economic havoc.

Flash back in time, to Berlin. Russian emigre Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) reigns as the caliph of counterfeiters. He lives a ribald life of gambling, drink and women, blithely unconcerned even as the Nazis consolidate power. He dismisses politics and the looming threat with the same air of contempt. But his unbroken run of luck turns south when he is arrested by Police Superintendent Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow) and placed in the horrific Mauthausen concentration camp. A natural-born survivor, Salomon keeps his head down and wins favor as an artist whose portraits stroke the egos of his German captors.

Then Herzog, his old nemesis, arranges to have Sorowitsch transferred to the upgraded camp of Sachsenhausen, conspicuous for its soft bunks, decent food and medical attention. But it is no humanitarian impulse at work. The inmates — selected ones, that is — must remain healthy for a reason.

So, after a brief post-war prologue, begins "The Counterfeiters," director Stefan Ruzowitzky's grim, terse account of the operation and the prisoners' attempt to walk a thin line between impeding the project and staying alive.

With his haunted, sad sack face and deliberate style, Markovics is tailor made for the role of the cynical Sorowitsch, a man with a highly evolved sense of self-preservation, so at odds with his fellow captive, the impassioned communist Adolf Burger (August Diehl), keen to die a martyr if it means thwarting the Nazi scheme. Striesow is ideal as the oily, faux-sympathetic Herzog, but it is Martin Brambach (as Holst) who gives one shivers as a casually homicidal Nazi officer who regards even these key specialists as vermin.

Not that Sorowitsch doesn't take risks all along; he does, usually to protect comrades. But how he is compelled to deal with his larger moral dilemma, however belatedly, is the crux of the picture. It's a Hobson's choice: succeed in his task and prolong the war, or risk the lives of his fellow prisoners by delaying.

His final gesture, taken years after the war in an opulent casino, is the most telling one of all.

Winner of this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, "The Counterfeiters" melds flawlessly stark production design with an edgy consistency of tone and effectively understated performances. If, perhaps, there are a few too many narrative conventions that skirt the edge of cliche, they are grounded in the truth and overridden by Ruzowitzky's unobtrusive direction.

It's excellent, fact-based work, revealing a little-remembered plot and the men who, against their will, almost brought it to fruition.

Reach Bill Thompson at 937-5707.