Not nearly as good as it could have been

Rating: 5/10 (29 January 2000)

This movie took a subject which was extremely complicated and difficult, and dumbed it down to the level that everyone except Representative Tom Coburn (OK) could understand it (he complained about the networks "polluting the minds of our children" when it was shown on tv, because it had nudity and violence). Oscar Schindler was an anti-semite, a real anti-semite. Someone once asked him why he had done what he did, and he said something along the lines of "if you see a dog hit by a car dying in the street, you know you're better then the dog, but you still want to help it" (he was equating Jews with dogs, placing them on the same moral level). He was also a womanizer and alcoholic. The golden ring he was given at the end of the film, in real life was later traded for a drink. This was not the same Schindler portrayed in the movie. The film attempted to show some of his "seedy" side, I think that's what the secretary hiring scene was supposed to be, but it didn't really work, and I didn't end up thinking Oscar Schindler was that bad of a guy. This could have been a much richer film if it was about a bad person who did a good thing, which was what the historical event actually was.
The film, I think, was meant to be an educational project. It was meant to teach people about the holocaust when they really didn't know much about it. As that, it succeeds. This is a movie that should be shown to middle school students when the holocaust is being studied. It brings knowledge to the masses which they otherwise would not have known about. but as art, as a movie, it just dressed itself up as a "serious art film", while actually really dumbing down the subject. If you're already familiar with the subject matter, if you already knew genocide was bad, that Nazis were crazy, and that the holocaust was an enraging and sad event, then there's really nothing in the movie to think about. I would put this film in the same class as Man On The Moon - mediocre films that have nothing to offer beyond introducing the audience to events they may be unfamiliar with.