Let's be realistic.

A Masterpiece!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This well intentioned but not very rewarding movie of the filming of Eichmann's trial delivers what the title promises no more than the title states. It's about the film maker's troubles and decisions filming the show. But who really cares if the producer and director argued about camera angles or cleverly concealed cameras in the court room. The actual survivors testimonies were hard to follow through translated voices. And Eichmann's own testimony and excuses were very briefly shown. At least for the trial they could have cut away from the camera room POV to put you inside the court room.Anthony La Paglia plays Leo Hurwitz the director. But his accent comes through as Australian more often than it should. Martin Freeman is better but a little goofy looking.This movie doesn't pretend to be a movie dramatizing Eichmann's crimes and capture. But it leaves you wishing for a well made movie about that instead and indeed there is one in the works so be patient. This one is not a must watch by any means.

Apart from the flagrantly bad acting of Martin Freeman, whom I have never seen before and hope never to see again, this is an enormously impressive film which tackles a difficult subject well. Excellently done was the blending of the real 1961 trial footage with modern reconstruction, something that frequently goes awry. Here the back-&-forth switching seems odd at first but grows on the viewer, involving us even more closely in the events on screen. Also very clever was the use of English voice-over to all the trial footage, an authentic-sounding simultaneous interpreter, flubs and all, echoing over earphones. Good idea! One did wish, however, that the original languages were occasionally allowed to leak through in voice-over pauses, to give more authenticity to the speakers: atrocity witnesses, prosecutors, judges and also the defendant himself. (In this film it is hard to tell that the trial was conducted almost entirely in German, which is a fact worth knowing; with some witnesses speaking in French, a language utterly unsuited to such descriptions and all the more harrowing for that reason.) Most eyes should be turned away from the camp archive footage, but thankfully there is not too much of it and one is always forewarned. The same cannot be said about watching the defendant himself, which is upsetting. But the Eichmann footage used here was also a choice by the film-makers, to render him less than the "human" Hurwitz starts out by assuming he is.The twisted, vicious face we see continually on display was not, however, the only face available. I had the privilege many years ago of seeing a documentary of the trial, at an art cinema in Tokyo, with English subs. It was very long and composed entirely of trial footage deftly edited: no narration, no music, no inter-titles. (I have tried in vain to locate it on this site; does anyone know the film I mean? I saw it in 97? 98? but it may have been made earlier,in Canada? US? UK?) What I remember about Eichmann was his many faces in the dock. Often a very nervous, ratty man with huge stacks of paper and notepads, which he shuffled through constantly, taking notes and looking for all the world like a perfectly sane accountant on trial for fiddling the books. This aspect was not shown to us in "The Eichmann Show", which is a pity. Not for any kind of sympathy, God knows, but to scare the living daylights out of us by what Arendt called the "banality of evil." In many ways this banal accountant type was more horrible than the leering, sneering, unchanging Satanic face we constantly see in this film... because it did not seem to occur to the accountant that he had done anything seriously wrong. But the film-makers here were wedded to a certain view, and did not want to complicate it.One understands that such an overwhelming event needs simplifying for the movie-going masses, and this film has done a fine job overall. But as I watched it myself, I had the longer documentary in mind to help me come to grips with it. If "help" is the right word.

The movie was completely riveting. As one previous review stated 'you would have to be dead' not to be moved by this subject. I have been watching the Eichmann trail and all I see is a man in a glass booth day after day with no emotion. How is this possible? He looks like a quiet mild mannered man without a mean bone in his body. The movie shows the frustration involved as the cameras constantly move back to Eichmann's face- and there is no reaction. the twitch, the smirk, but really no emotion. The most horrific footage possible of innocent people starved,killed naked, tortured- and yet there is no reaction on Eichmanns faceHow can someone look so normal, be so organized,act so sane and intelligent, and yet be a monster? I had no idea that the camera's were actually holes in the walls so as not to disturb or disrupt the proceedings. The movie tackles some of the deepest issues of the holocaust- it gave a voice to the survivors to finally tell their stories to the whole world. hopefully we won't repeat this ever again. If I were God, I might be tempted to find another Noah, build a new ark, and start all over

Can there be spoilers on a rendition of an historic event??This is a heartbreaking view, they used footage of the original Eichmann trial did they not? Anybody with a heart will have tears in their eyes and their stomachs turned over and over at the sight of the (thankfully short) parts of the documentary of Auschwitz. Very strong emotional attack.Are men capable of being monsters, well Eichmann was. The closing statements of the film, an accusation to all that judge people on their religion, the colour of their skin, on anything BUT their character.