John Shea and Bill Nighy are excellent as two German brothers involved in the most brutal example of human evil in recent memory, dealing with the rise of Adolf Hitler in completely different ways. They come from a good family, and with issues facing Germany's economy after World War 1 their lives are headed in different directions. At one point, they are fighting to protect Jewish Professor Jose Ferrer from attacks of vicious young S.S. leaders of the not yet fully powerful Nazi party, but destiny will change all that.
All you really have to do is pick up history books to read about the atrocities of 20th Century leaders like Hitler, Lenin and Mao Tse Tung, but to see it either through newsreels or various dramatic adaptions has quite a larger impact. What makes this stand out is the psychological look into the reasons why certain Germans supported the Nazi party, and it wasn't a belief in what they were doing to those they knew who just happened to not be what the Reich considered to be the perfect "Arian".
The brutalities are often downright inhumane, so be prepared. Jews, homosexuals, the mentally ill, other various enemies of the state. They all get their time here in being depicted. Lucy Gutteridge is lovely as the young lady whom one of the brothers love, first against their rise, later seen entertaining them in Russia. Emulating the emcee from "Cabaret", Tony Randall scores in a small role as an obviously gay spy. In his memory of serving in World War II, veteran Broadway producer/director Harold Prince recalled seeing characters just like Randall's and "Cabaret's" emcee, a staple in German cabarets even after the war.
Hitler is caught on camera several times, often sneaking around to catch a victim of his atrocities, in one case one of his own men with another man. This T.V. movie doesn't fail to leave out much detail but jumps from year to year with a jarring effect. It doesn't impact the overall intensity of the film which also features David Warner and Carroll Baker in important parts. Thus doesn't delve much into the Holocaust, but that had already been dealt with in a T.V. mini-series. What it does show is the social anxiety of humanity outside the walls of concentration camps, on the streets where other horrendous events were taking place, destroying innocent lives and cowardly souls in the process.
All you really have to do is pick up history books to read about the atrocities of 20th Century leaders like Hitler, Lenin and Mao Tse Tung, but to see it either through newsreels or various dramatic adaptions has quite a larger impact. What makes this stand out is the psychological look into the reasons why certain Germans supported the Nazi party, and it wasn't a belief in what they were doing to those they knew who just happened to not be what the Reich considered to be the perfect "Arian".
The brutalities are often downright inhumane, so be prepared. Jews, homosexuals, the mentally ill, other various enemies of the state. They all get their time here in being depicted. Lucy Gutteridge is lovely as the young lady whom one of the brothers love, first against their rise, later seen entertaining them in Russia. Emulating the emcee from "Cabaret", Tony Randall scores in a small role as an obviously gay spy. In his memory of serving in World War II, veteran Broadway producer/director Harold Prince recalled seeing characters just like Randall's and "Cabaret's" emcee, a staple in German cabarets even after the war.
Hitler is caught on camera several times, often sneaking around to catch a victim of his atrocities, in one case one of his own men with another man. This T.V. movie doesn't fail to leave out much detail but jumps from year to year with a jarring effect. It doesn't impact the overall intensity of the film which also features David Warner and Carroll Baker in important parts. Thus doesn't delve much into the Holocaust, but that had already been dealt with in a T.V. mini-series. What it does show is the social anxiety of humanity outside the walls of concentration camps, on the streets where other horrendous events were taking place, destroying innocent lives and cowardly souls in the process.