When the film starts in 1936, Salomon is busted by the Berlin police. Three years of hard time leads to a transfer to a concentration camp. This concentration camp is headed up, among others, by Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow); the police officer who busted him for counterfeiting. This time, Herzog handpicks Salomon to oversee an entire workshop devoted to falsifying the British pound and the American dollar. The idea being, according to the brass, that this funny money can be used to swamp foreign markets and bankrupt each country into oblivion. Salomon uses the opportunity to live in nicer quarters from the rest of the camp but to perhaps capture the elusive dollar he was never able to perfect in his former life.

Among the fellow detainees serving as technicians and printers, there is Adolf Burger (August Diehl) He was arrested by the Nazis for printing pro-Communist propaganda. While Salomon sees this as using his particular skills to stay out of the gas chambers, Adolf believe they can serve a greater purpose by sabotaging this effort. For Adolf believes the real reason for this project is to create money to fund the war effort in an increasingly-strapped Nazi government. As this project lapses in the time right before the end of the war, the film juxtaposes the creation of the dollar with whether its completion will coincide with the Allies ultimately victory.

In addition to being a satisfying historical piece, The Counterfeiters also poses an interesting moral dilemma to a man who has made a good living off making money worthless. What is money worth when it can be used (or thwarted) to save so many lives. This is the fascinating evolution in a film that, at times, feels pretty familiar. I know critics are not supposed to say that about films about the Holocaust, but there are traps and cliches for which filmmakers rely. Director Stefan Ruzowitzky is just as susceptible as everyone before him. Otherwise, it's great, powerful stuff. It's playing at the Moxie Cinema (www.moxiecinema.com) for the next week.