Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Year Released: 2004
Rating: 2.0
Grim film about Hitler's last days is basically a glorified epilogue, with his generals and assistants in a panic because the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. Keeps hitting the same note over and over again, as Mein Fuhrer's men slowly lose confidence in their ability to hold off the onslaught but Hitler insists they push on, shooting those that disobey for treason. Towards the end, it becomes one suicide after another (isn't it a bit excessive to show each and every single golden haired Goebbels child being killed by their insane mother?), one rant after another by Bruno Ganz (veering dangerous close to parody some of the time) and one proud Nazi Salute after another. The claims that this is sympathetic towards Hitler are way off - he's clearly deranged - though his whole "campaign" does sound a little more like plain ol' war rather than genocide when you take the Concentration Camps out of the picture and barely mention them in the film itself - even Traudl Junge, at the end, claims she had no knowledge of the Camps. Denial can be a beautiful thing.
