Pitt looks bad in close ups

Rating: 8/10 (28 August 2009)

I was sorry to watch the extreme closeups of Brad Pitt at the beginning of the picture when he is interrogating captured Germans. The camera was most unkind to him, showing how badly he has aged. He has pronounced wrinkles and bags under his eyes. Also what is that scar on his neck? It looks like the scar Clint Eastwood's character bore from the failed lynching in "Hang em High". Perhaps the scar is a trace of a face lift.
Anyway, in his mid-forties and now looking it, Pitt would have been too old to be a mere lieutenant in WW II. And why did he not get promoted during the three years we see him in action?
The hardest thing to swallow in all the movie was the absurdly lackadaisical security at the theater. The Fuhrer would have had numerous SS guards inside and outside the premises, at the doors of the auditorium, on the balcony, etc. The black projectionist was not supposed to be in the theater at all, yet he walks around it openly, exits the main entrance then goes in a side door which has no guards on it, either inside or out. Unlikely, given typical German thoroughness.
Still I liked the surprise ending. I had not been told ahead of time that this was set in an alternative history, so I never expected the German leadership to get killed in June of 1944.