Ahh man.....

Rating: 1/10 (25 November 2010)

Watched an appalling film last night called The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Literally if I had not seen the Moth Man prophecies (a film where actually nothing happens) it could have been challenging for worst film ever.
It's about this little kid in Nazi Germany called Bruno set in World War II. Anyway of course it would turn out that his dad has a new job that they have to move to the country for leaving their nice house in the city, and the job is.. wait for it, being in charge of a Nazi death camp that regularly burns 'rubbish'. Anyway nothing at all happens for about 80 minutes until Bruno who has been playing where he shouldn't be (naughty boy) out in the back garden which seems perilously close to the actual concentration camp, befriends this Jewish boy through the electric fence of this camp. When he hears that the boy's father has gone 'missing' he goes and gets a shovel digs his way under the wire fence, climbs into the camp and merrily goes off with his new found friend in search of the missing father. Now unfortunately enough (and you might see where this is going) this turns out to be a classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time the optimistic Bruno and his friend Shmuel get rounded up when looking in one of the buildings with a load of other Jewish prisoners and are hustled along to a shower block where they are all told to strip as its 'shower time', even at this point our bewildered Bruno's face only gives a brief flicker of apprehension before being reassured by a guard that its only a shower and he'll be fine, right after the guard slams and bolts the door shut. Meanwhile back at the mansion they've been living in, 'mother' looks out of the window to check that the illustrious Bruno is gaily playing on the swing, which he's not. And so ensues a frantic search demonstrated by cut scenes between the dad, mum and sister looking under the odd table or chair in the house - this bit is entwined with a few flashes of lightening and shots of a thunderstorm starting, just to subtly emphasise to the viewer that maybe everything is not alright. – Anyway, of course the dad gets to the gas chamber a little bit too late for poor old Bruno and although there is no explanation as to how he exactly knew that Bruno had definitely been gassed anyway, it set the filmmakers up nicely enough to have him fall on his knees into the mud and scream BRUNOOO as the rain lashes down around him the mum somehow hears the cry of anguish even though she's distant and starts shedding tears..
OK so they basically thought of an emotive scene and worked everything backwards from there. The plot was thin, and threaded together completely out of convenience without any care as to whether there was any realism or viability to it. The actors all spoke in very well spoken English and acted like English people. A seemingly random decision the filmmakers took would be that they sporadically used Jewish prisoners from the concentration camp as staff around the house, to polish the glasses or peel potatoes even though they had maids It just looked and seemed completely ridiculous. There is a scene where this young Nazi officer, grabs the Jewish prisoner that is serving them at a formal dinner (the prisoner from the camp is wearing his concentration camp clothes which looked like striped Pyjamas which Bruno hilariously through the whole film keeps asking why they have the striped pyjamas on??) because he spilt the dessert wine while pouring it for him, and drags him to the side of the room and starts pummelling him in front 'of the kids' during the meal he also somehow manages to blurt out that his father was a defector which proved to be a bit of foot in mouth moment for him as he was sent of to the front line the next day for not informing the Nazi's of this.
The direction of photography was poor, with abrupt cut to a face on shot used pretty much every time someone speaks.
The gassing of the feckless Bruno at the end is a blatant attempt to jerk tears out of retarded viewers who can't see that it was coming all along, the scene ultimately leaves them feeling sad for him rather than all the Jews which have died.
Really really bad. I can see how they sold it though, they got Eric Cartman into the studio director's office, and Eric starts off it's the beautiful story of two friends, no, life companions who meet against the backdrop of one of the worst man-made atrocities of our time, one is a Jew in the concentration camp and the other is the son of the guy in charge of murdering all of the Jews, much hilarity ensues as this odd duo battle against all odds to keep their friendship and the trouble oblivious Bruno has understanding why they have prison numbers on their clothes, why they have to stay behind their fence, why Shmuel keeps asking him for food, why there's a funny smell in the air and why on earth are you wearing your PJs (BRUNO you little rascal that joke just won't ever get old – kinda like you!!! -Ha ha ha). Blah blah blah Bruno accidentally gets gassed in the chamber with the other Jews. THE END.