Kid's Do The Darndest Things

Rating: 5/10 (8 February 2009)

The best way to look at this movie about an 8 year old German boy coming into contact with the fringes of the Holocaust is as an episode of Leave It To Beaver in which the Beaver gets himself into a scrape by applying a child's logic to incomplete and misunderstood information about the adult world. The first half works as a very credible child's eye view of a family in which Naziism is right, normal and taken for granted, although Grandma and Mom do have a few qualms about what Dad does at the office. The second half fails because the child prisoner whom Bruno -- the Beaver -- befriends could not have the same child's innocence that Bruno has. Bruno has no reason to understand what is going on behind the wire, but an 8 year old in the camp would know all too well. You can see the melodramatic ending coming a mile away.