Watch and decide for yourself...

Rating: 8/10 (3 November 2017)

There are a lot of negative reviews on here... Most of those focus on the fact that Nazis weren't as bad as how they depict them. I suppose that's a matter of opinion. And, as we know, opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one. Honestly, the fact that they exterminated so many people (and not just Jews) because they felt them to be "inferior" doesn't make Nazis all sunshine and rainbows. Were they an efficient society? Yes. Did that make them superior to people of other faiths or races? No. No matter how you look at it, everyone has their own definition of good and evil and levels thereof. It all depends on your point of view. And how Spielberg views exactly how evil he felt the Nazis were should not be the sole basis of a movie review. My apologies to those who think otherwise. Now, as for the movie itself, it is a bit dark and depressing. But then again, the real life events weren't like a Club Med vacation. If you know anything about this particular period of time, you shouldn't expect cheerful. If that's what you want, go watch something else. My son watched this in history class in high school (I had to sign a permission slip because of the nudity and content). When he saw it was on one of the movie channels a year later, he told me I should watch it, that it was such a good movie. Now... my kid loves video games and Pokemon. That's pretty much it. He hates to read and hates historical anything. So when he said it was good and I should watch it, I knew I had to see it. I must admit, I was engrossed from the beginning. I had never heard of Oskar Schindler before this movie (when I was in high school, they didn't delve much into WWII) and I found his story fascinating. He risked a lot to save the lives of a lot of people. Whether or not he profited from this financially or not is kind of irrelevant. What's most important is that he wanted to save lives when the rest of the Nazis wanted to kill them all off. And the very fact that these people, who are shown at the end honoring his grave, shows me they held him in high regard, which I found moving. And I'm not easily moved. From an artist aspect, I think this was very well done. The use of black and white was quite appropriate for the content and also allowed for the few splashes of color to help the viewer focus on something important you may not have noticed otherwise, like the little girl in the red coat. As for people who complained about Spielberg... You may not think this his best movie or some sappy piece of fluff he cranked out. For those who felt that way, I'd like to ask that you go read some of the trivia items. He doesn't get a dime from this movie. He wants everything he could get donated. Mind you, he could have just donated a chunk of money, but this was obviously something he felt strongly about. I consider that to be more than admirable.