Bloody Awful: Painfully Cheesy

Rating: 2/10 (18 November 2014)

I can't quite recall how this film found its way into my queue, but what a shame it did. From the opening line of the narrator's--and the narrator is Death--we knew it was a stinker. I understand it's based on a novel, and I hear the novel is good. Given the nature of the film I have a hard time believing that; but if that is the case, this may well be the mostly poorly adapted screenplay ever. But speaking from the strictly filmic vantage point it's bloody awful too; the story is set in Holocaust Germany (as if that hasn't been overdone) but none of the characters speak German; they all speak English, affecting German accents, while throwing in the occasional German word (e.g., nein) for effect. It's embarrassing; you're embarrassed for the actors. But the story is terribly contrived, the acting melodramatic, and the lines are horrific, the stuff of high school drama, obvious & patronizing. But above all those things, the story's just plain lame, for too many reasons to count. For starters, the narrator (Death) turns out also to be the main character. Aside from the fact that he's given the worst lines in the film, what's more offensive to the viewer's sensibilities is that Death upstages the Holocaust & WWII; it reduces them to supporting cast. A literary faux pas to say the least. Nevertheless, we sat through this stinker of a film and were rewarded appropriately: the closing lines of the film belong to the narrator's and they're equally if not more embarrassing than the opening ones. We were laughing out loud precisely where we weren't supposed to. Seriously, do yourself a favor; skip this movie. It's 2+ hrs of your life you'll never recover.