Strange and unusual, very "non-Hollywood"

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2010)

I approached this movie with some anxiety; I am not receptive to "making light" of the Nazis and, being Jewish, was concerned about comments I'd heard that the "revenge" angle is offensive to Jews. To make a very long story short, it is so beyond the realm of "realism" that it is hard to take offense. Initially, when the Jewish brigade was carrying out acts of sadism, my thought wasn't so much "Jews didn't do that" as "Americans didn't do that" because the troop in question was ultimately representing America.
But as time went on, I realized, the whole story is so outlandish that there is no point in picking out inconsistencies with reality. I admit that *****SPOILER HERE**********I started to wonder how it would have a major climax, as it seemed headed in that direction, that seemed to rest on major German leadership, including Hitler all being killed at the same time, as I figured it would not go against reality to that extreme. I made a mental comparison with HBO's Boardwalk Empire, where you know that the real life figures (Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, etc.) won't be killed along the way but the fictional ones are "fair game.") But, noooooo ....(SPOILER) .... the theater fire did take place as planned and Nazi leadership, including Hitler, was immolated. Now, having said that the whole story is fabricated and clearly preposterous, I have to add that it was riveting, highly creative, had carefully written and performed dialogue, and was deadly serious where it needed to be (SPOILER: the French milkman's shedding a tear when he was forced to give up Jewish people hiding under his floor boards to save his own family brought in the right amount of poignancy) and Mel Brooks-like in other spots. Somehow or other, it all "works" despite being bizarre and preposterous. I highly recommend it.