A Shining Example of Cinematic Bull****

Rating: 1/10 (17 December 2000)

How far will Benigni go for a few laughs and tears? Very, VERY far. Here, after all, is a film which portrays concentration camps as loosely structured playgrounds, Nazis as inept buffoons, and its hero as a lovable trickster, able to come and go as he pleases. It's "Hogan's Heroes" with a violin ending. But let's be fair. It's not the historical inaccuracies alone which make this movie such a shining example of cinematic bull****. Credit must also be given to its shameless sentimentality, bad jokes, shoddy plot, and the flagrant narcissism of its "creators".
And to my fellow reviewers who maintain that this is not a film about the Holocaust but rather the importance of familial love, I should like to say two things: One, you're confusing the film's theme with its subject, and two, if Benigni didn't want to make a movie about the Holocaust then perhaps he shouldn't have SITUATED HIS STORY IN A NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP!!