The Counterfeiters

"Normally, I don't dig the Oscar bait holocaust movies, because they're fundamentally flawed on a couple of levels. The underlying message that the holocaust was abhorrent is obvious, while visual attempts to depict the horrors can't help but be weak, watered down approximations of what really happened. The Counterfeiters however is a different beast from the cinematic lineage that precedes it. Although it is the true story of a Jewish prisoner in a World War Two concentration camp, it is an original and engaging story."

"At its best--and queasiest--The Counterfeiters asks disturbing questions more commonly found in the survivor literature of Primo Levi or Bruno Bettelheim than at the movies."

"The moral quandary of Nazi complicity is revisited in taut drama The Counterfeiters, which tells the true story of a disparate group of imprisoned artists, financiers and swindlers secretly assembled in a concentration camp to forge millions of pound and dollar notes to support the German war effort."

"The Counterfeiters is a swift and suspenseful thriller, and perhaps a little too entertaining for its own good."

"Well made, provocative and compelling."

"Bleak and brilliant concentration-camp drama is also a potent moral fable."

"The Counterfeiters demonstrates that no matter how many Holocaust stories the movies tell, there are always new and unexpected ones waiting to be revealed."

"That Ruzowitzky's film is so gripping is partly due to his decision to create a tense thriller rather than get bogged down in grim drama. Yet the director highlights the horrors of war with remarkable subtlety; although the workers are sheltered from seeing the brutality and torture, the screams alone are terrifying."