Well Told and Suspenseful

Rating: 7/10 (25 July 2015)

This is based upon a true story.
Maria Altman (Helen Mirren) tries to get the painting - Woman in Gold- of her aunt Adele who was painted by Gustav Klimt back from the Austrian government. This painting, among others, was stolen by the Nazis and later ended up in Austria where the government treated the painting like "their Mona Lisa" and do not want to give it up. Maria hires Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) to be her lawyer.
I really didn't think this would be any good for me, but since there were no other action-hero movies (are you waiting for the Superman/Batman movie?) out there I indulged. When I first saw the painting - Woman in Gold - my breath left me and I was hooked. What a beautiful painting (ha, you just liked the gold).
There are 2-stories in here. One in the present as we see Maria and Randy do everything they can to retrieve the painting including going to the U.S. Supreme Court and we also see flashbacks to the time Maria lived in Austria, where we see interactions with her aunt Adele (Antje Traue), her family, her wedding, the time the Nazis came in and took everything to her escape from the Nazis. Even though we know Maria escapes, we felt the tension and urgency as the Nazis chased her through the streets of Vienna. Whew! I was out of breath too. Good job.
Both stories are extremely well done and suspenseful throughout as we are not sure what will happen next. We see Nazi cruelty and some scenes were hard to watch and then we see Maria and Randy continue to find legal loopholes to convince the Austrian government to return the paintings to Maria. We see that Maria wanted to give up the fight many times but Randy who had given up his job at a successful law firm knew he had to persevere as he was laying everything on the line.
(so the Queen got her painting back?) The Queen wasn't in this. (look she was, just because she dyed her hair she didn't fool anyone. It was the Queen) No, it was Helen Mirren. (that woman again?)
Listening to the legal arguments on both sides was an education in itself. The acting all around was excellent.
Notables: Katie Holmes as Pam, Randy's wife; Tatiana Maslany as the young adult Maria in Vienna; and Daniel Bruhl as Hubertus Czernin a journalist who helps Maria and Randy with local knowledge of the inner-workings of the Austrian government and of some officials.
There is a resolution at the end of the movie, but stay before the credits run to learn more about what happened to Maria and Randy. (7/10)
Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: One F-bomb by Reynold's character otherwise brief small stuff.