The Truth

Rating: 4/10 (8 September 2007)

I have no trouble agreeing that this is Spielberg's best film. That's not as much of a compliment as you might think, because the majority of them have been embarrassingly awful.
Stevie learned a long time ago that there is big money in mawkish sentimentality and set out to capitalize on it. There is a substantial, guaranteed segment of the cinema-going public that will accept schmaltz as art. They simply do not know the difference.
So, while I will accept that this is a good movie, there is no way it belongs in the top 250. Or even in the top 2500. There are too many historical inaccuracies, too many factual liberties, too many scenes overdone for deliberate shock value. The whole thing is fake. It is only vaguely based on what actually happened. Yet it is presented as a factual historical drama and has been widely accepted as such.
The excesses of Hitler's Germany can never be forgotten or swept under the rug, but embellishing them and making gaudy parodies of the real thing does not well serve the memory of those who suffered through it.
"The Pianist" was not a perfect film, either, but it is a lot better than this one.