This is by far one of the most boring and horribly acted accounts of the early days of Adolf Hitler that I have ever watched. Robert Carlyle is a wonderful actor, but to cast him as Hitler is just plain wrong. To cast Liev Schrieber as Hitler's longtime friend and aid, Haefengstal must have emitted cries of despair and anguish from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. A J-W playing a Nazi supporter, bad bad bad casting. This was not an enjoyable family film with a good historical background. This was Hollywood rubbish at its finest, cashing in on the strength of a strong (but sorely under utilized) supporting cast of actors whom seemed to have all but disappeared from the acting radar in the past 5 years.

The fake German accents (vee vill vin zis var) is insulting to German people everywhere. My mother is German and she sat fuming at the sound of the voices which kept switching from American/English/German all in the same sentence. The supporting cast make better cardboard cutouts at the local video store than they do on screen. Jenna Malone as the fated Geli Raubal, was splendid though, she captured the innocence and confusion of this tragic young woman who ultimately ended her own life to escape what her future would have been like in Hitler's shadow.

If you would like a tremendously fantastic and historically accurate account of Hitler's early years leading up to and including the war/holocaust, rent "Inside the Third Reich" 1983 starring Rutger Hauer as Albert Speer and Derek Jacobi as Hitler. It was good and made more sense then this baloney.

As a historical researcher of the Third Reich I can honestly tell you, this had me reaching for my books to confirm its myriad of inaccuracies.

Did this review think positively or negatively of the movie?
negative