A Flattering Portrait Of An Evil Regime

Rating: 1/10 (6 March 2006)

I'm resubmitting my review (edited of course), because "someone" said it was offensive the first time. What did I say about this movie the first time? To summarize, I gave it a 7 of 10 (rated it a one star to make it easier to find among 300+ reviews, mostly 10 stars). I said it was well made. I also said it glorified an evil regime. I based that on the premise that it did not show a dead Adolf (was that the offensive part, that I didn't address him as Mr. Hitler?). Was his dead body so sacred that they would show everyone else's corpse except his bullet ridden head? Was that too taboo to show in a modern German film, was the filmmaker too scared to show that? I say it wasn't shown because the purpose of this film was to be sympathetic with an old Hitler's plight. Anyway, there were no morally redeeming elements in the film that said the Nazi's were bad, just that it didn't work out the way they wanted it to. I recommend seeing "Hitler: The Last Ten Days", or others have liked "The Bunker" (I have not seen that one, but will someday). Read Alfred Speers book "Inside the Third Reich" also for a more true account of what probably happened. Is this worth seeing, of course. I enjoyed it especially because I'm a history buff of Hitler and his inner circle and their last days (really any of their days and actions they undertook) are fascinating to me. I was just disappointed that it really made Hitler look like such a nice old man when you know he was a power mad psycho and was surrounded by fanatic death squads at his disposal. He had recently finished his purge of his enemies (plus others I'm sure) from the failed coup of 1944, people were petrified with fear of him! Remember the stories of being hung by piano wire that he filmed and watched over and over again? That moment would have been nice to include here to show how evil he was, but no, no mention of that. My favorite parts had more to do with the collapsing German Army in Berlin and what resulted than on the actual Hitler moments. We'll see if those who seem to love this film so much find this review offensive because all it is is my opinion of the truth. Sometimes, especially for the political left (maybe it was a present day Nazi who didn't like my first review who knows, I do know a lot of leftists seem to like this movie a whole lot), the truth hurts so much they resort to censorship to quell debate. Hell, if I pressed that offensive button on the reviews I found offensive here at IMDb it wouldn't be a very interesting place to visit. Just use your voter buttons and let the debate be allowed, sheesh.