Powerful

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

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Derek Jacobi is always for me the Emperor Claudius. Every other character he has played leaves me cold. This is a very clever story about French people during and right after the Nazi occupation from 1940-44. But the people all speak good English and act nothing at all like the French. The Germans of course act like Germans, brutal, vicious, violent as we expect them to be.I guess one could sympathize with Clavel and his dilemma as the one who sent Therese's brother to his death. But Anthony Hopkins here is not the Hopkins we have come to appreciate and love. He seems very wooden to me. I saw this on MGM HD quite by accident and it seemed to have prospects but I have nothing really good to say about ti.

All films are inherently impossible, but this impossible story is so far-fetched and unconvincing it might work better if it were set in another universe. A totally unrealistic moral and intellectual conundrum involving sin, guilt, and atonement, as well as life and death, in many ways typical of Greene at his worst. The 5 stars are for the acting, which is competent, even skilled, but the writing is not good. Perhaps I should dock more stars, but I suppose the questions are mentally and philosophically engaging. The actors do their best with the story, which really is fantastic. Greene wrote it in 1944, and then forgot about it for 40 years, until the early 1980s. And I'm frankly not surprised. Its first appearance in book form seems to have been in 1985, and the TV film appeared in 1988.It gives an impression of being vaguely based on the crucifixion story, with Chavel, one man (of three) buying his life by giving another, named Mangeot, all his property and allowing him to take his place for execution, thereby incidentally redeeming the (non-existent) sins of the remaining Frenchmen, both in and out of prison. The Germans represent the Romans in this scenario. The imagery is picked up visually by having the three execution posts arranged to resemble crucifixion sites. You expect the three prisoners fated for death to arrive carrying their crosses. An additional philosophical implication is that since we are all going to die, does it matter when ? Or was the sacrificial lamb about to die soon anyway ? I thought he had a nasty cough.Most of the other reviewers seem quite willing to disregard the enormous plot holes, although at least one notices that the Germans were shooting prisoners after two days, but Hopkins/Chavel makes it through three years. Go figure. After that, every plot objection is covered by some convenient special circumstance. The mother of the sacrificed boy thinks he earned and has bought the property that she and her daughter Therese have been given, and is unaware of the way he died. There seem to be no photographs of Chavel in the house, beyond the age of about ten. Nobody anywhere recognises him behind his beard.In the end, the mother dies, and Chavel is pointlessly shot dead by a murdering impostor, thereby atoning for his shabby behaviour. I give up, but it is definitely hard on Therese, the sister, who has done nothing wrong at all. She is surrounded by her dead mother, her dead brother and her dead would-be lover. Still, she ends up with the château, the land and the cash. The Third Man is a long way better than this.

A WWII dark story by Graham Greene (who also wrote the Third Man).A prisoner makes a deal with another prisoner to save himself from being executed they swap places in exchange for everything the one owns including a secluded mansion.I won't spoil the story or bore you (if you have seen it) with more of the plot.It is well done...the acting good...the screen adaptation of the book not ponderous like they sometimes are trying to cram too much in.Anthony Hopkins like Anthony Perkins before him was type caste by one horror role. This younger version of him makes it easier to forget.A good watch. RECOMMEND.

I just want to add a little balance to the glowing reviews here saying this one of Anthony Hopkins "best". Ummm, I don't think so, and it's not his doing. The Tenth Man starts out with a LOT of promise as Hopkins character a French Lawyer is rounded up in a hostage sweep by the Nazi's on the streets of Paris. Now I guess that could have happened but something tells me even Nazi's aren't that stupid to take one of the french upper crust in a hostage sweep and why after he was forced to go to the castle prison someone didn't come to get him out, I guess poor planning on his part not to have a contingency for that. Anyway he is in a cell with other hostages used as reprisal against the resistance. Not long after he is imprisoned the Nazi's call for every tenth man to be taken out and shot and the Nazi's the sadists they are tell the prisoners to chose. Hopkins draws the lot and pleads for mercy, and than offers his rich estate to anyone who will take his place. A young drifter takes his offer, does an impromptu will and gets shot in the morning. About 3 years later Hopkins is out of prison finally because France has been liberated (yeah I know, they were shooting guys 2 days into his captivity and somehow he makes it through 3 years, go figure). Hopkins is a wreck of a man goes back to his estate, tries to live there as a landscaper and falls in love. The girl there, the dead guys sister, has a burning passion to see the guy who "killed" her brother, she hates him with all get out. Anyway, after the prison scenes which are maybe 20 minutes, its 80 minutes of a really drawn out melodrama. The sisters character has absolutely no pity for why they got in this situation and blames only the rich guy, the rich guy is scared to tell her the truth, some others come along to expose him, she after living with this guy a long time still has no sympathy for him, the bad tattletale shoots Hopkins in the heart, and I just saved you 100 minutes to do other things. I guess a chick wartime flick but with the sister being such a b##ch it was hard to get into it, I am glad I watched the ending though so I could see how it all turned out, not pretty. Definitely NOT Hopkins best but he is of course good, its just the script that sucks. I recommend "Random Harvest" for a better watch pertaining to war, lost identities, and love.