Steven Spielberg finally pulled it all together in one film to please the adult public and the Academy Awards voters alike.

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2002)

Schindler's List did quite well at the box office, while it guaranteed the maker his first Oscar for directing. Jane Campion edged him out for several of the year-end awards given by critics groups, but the Academy put him at the top of their "A" list for this effort. 1993 was quite a year for Spielberg. JURASSIC PARK went goofy worldwide, eclipsing yet another Spielberg megabuck effort, E.T. Schindler's List may never quite reach the same box-office stratosphere, but Spielberg can certainly be most pleased and proud of this film. Shot in glorious black and white, it is the heart-wrenching story of a group of Jews condemned to the Krakow Ghetto who are saved by a most unlikely guardian angel, a German businessman named Oskar Schindler. Herr Schindler is, at first, only interested in these people as cheap labor that can further enhance his bank account, but somewhere along the way he gains a measure of humanity and is soon taking substantial risks for "his" Jews. The movie isn't precisely clear about why this drastic character change takes place, but that hardly matters. The inherent drama of the turbulent situation carries us along for the full three hours, and you'll be hard-pressed not to shed a few tears during the journey. Liam Neeson does a stalwart job of filling the Schindler shoes, not skimping on the little character details while looming larger than life. It has been noted that Neeson has the presence of an old-fashioned movie star and as Schindler, he shows that he knows what to do with it. The real-life Schindler was described as a cross between Curt Jurgens and George Sanders.

Also quietly impressive is that Gandhi guy, Ben Kingsley, as Itzhak, a very clever accountant who is the brains behind the Schindler empire. Newcomer Ralph Fiennes has also copped some Best Supporting Actor awards for his nasty Nazi, Amon Goeth, who heads up the Plaszow forced labor camp. When bored, Goeth picks off unsuspecting prisoners with his rifle from the terrace of his villa. Chilling. The rest of the large cast has been carefully chosen, the script is intelligent, the music is sweeping, and that cinematography by Janusz Kaminski is a knockout. The complaints about Schindler's List are mostly minor. At one point Spielberg feels compelled to use a special-effects trick. It looks like a cheap cut-and-paste job. Couldn't the man who made dinosaurs walk the earth so realistically pull off this relatively simple stunt? The protracted finale also got on my nerves. After the movie climaxes, the director lets it drag on with a heartfelt but misplaced tribute to the actual survivors. Mr. Spielberg, your manipulation is showing.