Screwed up in the end (possible spoilers)

Rating: 7/10 (14 March 2003)

Most of this film is an alternately hilarious and brutal satire on Nazism and Fascism, made at the height of those movements' success.
Sadly, in the final moments of the film, Chaplin abandons all pretense of making art (not to mention comedy) and switches completely to propaganda. And not anti-Nazi propaganda, either, but some of the most mawkish and idiotic "progressive" propaganda ever to ooze out of Hollywood.

Never mind that nothing we have seen so far indicates that the barber is even capable of giving the speech we see him give (delivered, ironically, with a disturbing wild-eyed fanaticism); such trivialities must not be permitted to interfere with The Message.