Eye Candy #318 - "The Counterfeiters"

The Counterfeiters:  While I often disagree with the Academy in terms of who wins what award for Best Picture, Actor, and so forth, they are often spot-on for the winner for Best Foreign Picture.  The winner for 2007, this movie details the Nazi’ “Operation Bernhard”: the mass counterfeiting of foreign documents including currency, travel papers, etc., with the initial goal of flooding the various Allied countries with these documents and leading to economic collapse.  The Germans forcibly recruit Jews with financial and criminal backgrounds from their various concentration camps to the project, providing them better than average accommodations. After initial success with the British pound note, they are then tasked with duplicating the US dollar.  The main character is Salomon Sorowitsch, the “King of Counterfeiters”, who finds himself interred with other printers, engravers, and artists at Sachsenhausen concentration camp.  Sorowitsch finds himself the de facto leader of the Jews on the project, protecting them from the Nazis as well as leading their counterfeiting efforts which are helping the Nazi war effort against the Jews.  A well-made movie all the way around, with solid acting, directing, and pacing.  Woodchuck sez, “The Academy got this one right.”