Seriously, don't confuse this with the movie Falling Down

Rating: 8/10 (22 November 2008)

So amidst all the rubble and carnage there lurked a man -- larger than life, crumbling within -- whom we know as Adolf Hitler. Downfall is a sympathetic, though never forgiving, portrayal of him, and it works best when it remains focused on him. Bruno Ganz's performance is incendiary. It would seem to me that the role of Germany's Furher may be the most difficult role this side of Jesus Christ, and Ganz plays him with a middling sense of teetering insanity. In essence, we are invited to watch a mind reach its breaking point and then snap.
Ostensibly, the story is told through the eyes of Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary. But she seems more of a catalyst, as plenty of interwoven characters each have their own moments and subplots.
Despite the brooding charisma of Hitler that bleeds through every frame of the camera, the real frights of Downfall are the men underneath him. From Goebbels on down, there is an atmosphere of intense devotion, of fierce loyalty to what was, in the chronology of the film, a lost cause. One scene involves the Mrs. Goebbels giving cyanide to her children because she could see no future in a world without National Socialism.
The battle scenes are the least-impressive part of the movie; many films have done a better job at this. But the cinematography is gorgeous, and the screen drips its muddy tones and earth colors.
The real strength, though, is the acting, which is solid throughout -- consequently, Downfall is a brisk two and a half hours. As Adolf Hitler, Bruno Ganz reinvents our notion of the mass murderer: he blurs the line between the monster and the man, and rightly so. We have sympathy for Hitler as a human being, but our sympathy does not absolve him. In fact, it makes his misdeeds all the more atrocious.
Downfall is an important film, and a landmark in World War II-era movies.