The worst film I've ever seen

Rating: 1/10 (17 June 2012)

Forget 'Battlefield Earth', 'Wolf Creek', 'Dancer in the Dark', 'Catwoman', etc. 'Downfall' is inexcusable and unforgivable. This trivialisation of one of the bleakest periods of human history should never have been made.
There's a loose correspondence with real events: World War Two happened, Hitler died, and that's about it. Almost every scene rang false. There was no mention of the holocaust, just a few anti-semitic ravings, briefly confined to the later parts. The acting was uniformly (as befits a Nazi drama) awful.
It's a blasphemy against humanity to make a film like this. Show what actually happened, or get as close to it as possible when the records are lacking, but don't make an 'entertainment' of those dreadful days.
Any return to the evil and slaughter of 1939-45 should leave a viewer stunned and outraged. 'Downfall' fails at every level. It fails to tell the truth. It fails to involve any viewer who has any inkling of the truth. It shows scenes that certainly didn't happen.
Until watching 'Downfall' I'd rated 'Inglourious Basterds' as the worst war film ever. After what I saw tonight, Tarantino's greatest folly is now reduced to a mistimed joke. If you're going to falsify history, why not immolate Hitler in a Parisian cinema, cocking a snook at reality?
I can only think that 'Downfall' was made by persons wholly insensitive to human suffering who hoped to wring a few tears from a popcorn-gobbling audience by showing human suffering.
I kept watching, with increasing reluctance, for a long, long time. Then I felt so disgusted with the film, and with myself for being dragged along by a manipulatively false and farcical story, that I hit the off button.
Everyone involved with the making of this loathsome film should be ashamed of themselves. The favourable IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes ratings can only have come from reviewers not old enough to feel connected to the unspeakable vileness of Nazi Germany.
I thought it would be a hard call, but 'Downfall' is the worst film I've ever seen.