directorial

Nathan, via his thoroughly pedestrian directorial style, never exactly masks who it is anyway.

While its script initially shows sensitivity to the real-life Christy Martin’s private trauma, the movie is pummeled by some poundingly obvious directorial choices.

For his second directorial effort, Vanderbilt, a journeyman writer best known for his “Zodiac” screenplay for David Fincher, adapts “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist” by Jack El-Hai, about the curious clinical relationship between Dr. Douglas Kelley, an Army psychiatrist, and former German Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring during the lead-up to the Nuremberg trials.

That motif originated with his 2009 directorial debut, “Crazy Heart,” starring Jeff Bridges as a faded country music legend caught in the throes of alcoholism and trying to find a way forward.

Instead, in “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” he offers a character study as biopic, riding a similar groove as his Oscar-winning 2009 directorial debut “Crazy Heart.”