MASTERPIECE!

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2018)

For some inexusable reason, I didn't see this movie for the first time until I was in my mid-20s. . I've since tried to atone for that negligence by watching it at every opportunity. I've always believed in the power of satire as an effective weapon in the war against injustice and evil, and The Great Dictator is a satirical masterpiece created by the original celluloid master-satirist. I've heard the same rumors that many have noted about the supposed lukewarm attitude Chaplin had about Hitler's regime, but a simple glance at the production and release dates of this film should once and finally put an end to that disinformation. This was not only a brilliantly hilarious lampooning of a vile ideology, I consider it to be the Gold Standard of cinematic satire. I can only hope that the lucky few Jewish survivors of the Nazi's inhumanity who saw this movie found it in some small way satisfying. For everyone else, I I hope it communicated effectively its (I believe) intended message that, although we'll never extinguish evil everywhere, we should ridicule it relentlessly when and wherever it's found