Arguably one of the greatest messages of all-time

Rating: 10/10 (13 March 2020)

It should be said that Chaplin exclaimed later in life that he would not have made the film had he known the true nature of The Holocaust, however he was probably just as ignorant as most of the Americans at the time.
Chaplin plays the two roles here, one as a Hitler parody and one as a Jewish barber who suffers from amnesia. The film has a great opening sequence, with a close-up shot to show an older Charlie Chaplin. He had been in the business over twenty years and to still see him in the game at age 50 is very cool. The opening is very funny with eye-candy scenes such as Chaplin getting lost and winding up with the enemy, the plane flying upside down and the bullets following him. Chaplin still incorporated the silent-film visual aesthetic, but happened to add sound to this one. it would have been interesting to see more of this style.
The Great Dictator was ultimately a warning about Hitler, with the famous scene where Chaplin is dancing with the big globe. He had the world in his hands, quite literally. Chaplin's Jewish character gives one of the most heartwarming speeches at the end of the film involving Hitler preaching that we are men and we should fight against our own enslavement. The speech is arguably the most famous Chaplin moment ever.
The Great Dictator may not be his most famous film, but it is arguably one of the most important pictures of all time. Messages to this effect don't appear to often in modern movies, with many films nowadays being made for the commercial profit or the homogeneous pseudo-intellectual "views" of some directors. This movie is about the heart, not the money.
"Let us Unite!"