Thanks for the memories!

Best movie ever!

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An easily Seduced Academic is separated from His Wife and His Conscience by a Flirtatious Blonde Student and a Allure of an Easy Life from the Nazis. A Weak Intellectual Type is probably an Easy Mark for both. The "Good" Man who does nothing while Evil is all around Him is the Heart and Soul of the Film, Subtly and Methodically showing how it can readily happen.The Movie is so easily paced that it lacks a few Hard and Disturbing Scenes to jar the Viewer into some sort of Urgency. Nothing here seems at all Desperate until it is too late and that's the Thesis. But in Cinematic Terms it all just sort of happens and the Impact of the Implications and the Fingerpointing gets smothered in a Lethargic Pace and the Exclamation Points become Periods.Not a Bad Movie, it is quite Good. However, the Profound Warnings it attempts to Reflect with its Historical Mirror are never given enough Hutzpah to be anything more than a Muse. A Sincere and Important Muse to be sure, but it fails to use its Fiction and its Medium to bring Home its Message. Apathy is nothing but Self-Preservation at the Expense of Everything Else.

Three reasons why this film is a waste of time and money:First, it is about the most horrific 12 years in German history and none of the actors are German, but mainly English. They don't even make an effort to hide their English accents when they utter German words. However, that is not the main problem, the main problem is that they are so English. Their entire behaviour is SO English. Either you make a film about dictatorship that could happen anywhere, anytime or a film about Nazi Germany but then there HAS to be an accurate historical, cultural portrayal of the time and people!Second, there is nothing, absolutely nothing 'good' in Halder, he is not even 'nice'. Halder is a Nazi who pretends NOT to be one. He does zero to protect his best friend while it is still time - and we are talking about his best friend, a man he shares his most intimate problems with! It is difficult to understand why he attempts to finally help him once it is too late!Third, there is nothing moving, nothing touching about this film, even the last scene in the concentration camp feels like - and I am sorry to draw this comparison but this is what it felt like watching it - a trip to the house of horrors at a funfair!What could have been an interesting, excruciating film about a man who through the choices he makes, gives in to evil and realizes too late that he was lured into a trap and has not only betrayed his best friend but is committing atrocious crimes against humanity, has gone horribly, horribly, horribly wrong! Awful, awful, awful!

What have I done? What have I done? You can imagine that Professor John Halder (Viggo Mortensen) was asking that question over and over.He seemed not to understand what was happening to him as he let himself be used by the Nazi's. First, he joins the party, then he loses his lifelong friend simply because he was Jewish. It was only when he was picked to inspect the death camps did he come to a full realization of the depths into which he had sunk.How do you cook a lobster? If you throw it into a pot of boiling water it will scream and jump out. But, if you put it in water and slowly raise the temperature, it boils before it knows what/s happening. Professor Halder was put in tepid water and the temperature raised gradually until the shock hit him full force, and he could not escape.Mortensen was very good, but his friend Morris (Jason Isaacs), a Jew, was excellent.

This is a poor film adaptation of C.P. Taylor's stage play. I can see how this drama may have been much more effective on stage; unfortunately, under Vicente Amorim's amateurish direction this story loses all its impact as a motion picture.Although others on this board have complained about Mortensen's performance, as well as the use of British accents, I happen not to agree: Mortensen's against-type performance was excellent, and the use of British accents served to constantly remind us that the characters were foreign, and, at the same time, allowed us to understand them. (Mortensen and others speaking in their native American accents would have been much more incongruous and jarring).My main complaint about this movie is that it adds absolutely nothing to our knowledge of the Holocaust. It's an entirely superfluous film.