Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageMax (2002)
Director: Menno Meyjes
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Munich, 1918: a destitute, bigoted soldier and a wealthy Jewish art dealer strike up an uneasy acquaintance rooted in mutual fascination and revulsion - puppyish resentment on one side, noblesse oblige on the other. 'He had a bad war,' explains Max Rothman (Cusack), who should know - he lost his painting arm in battle, and is starting up a gallery in a disused ironworks. Witty, urbane, entranced by wife and mistress (Parker and Sobieski), Rothman pegs his contemptuous yet clingy fellow veteran, also a would-be painter, as an outsider artist. If the war was, as Max puts it, a 'giant piece of kitsch theatre', this coldly anti-semitic specimen of its beggar casualties could be its star. His name is Adolf Hitler. Sight unseen and months before its release, Meyjes' film was attacked for daring to 'humanise' Hitler (Taylor). But is there any doubt the Führer was a human being? Any attempt to reconcile the last century's towering monster to his unremarkable flesh and blood dimensions might be viewed as morally intrepid. Taylor's simulacrum calls to mind a famished, rabid ferret, or a caricature out of George Grosz. Perhaps it's more accurate to say Hitler has been anthropomorphised by a film that's sometimes regrettably glib, sometimes dreadfully earnest. Taken as a whole, it's an intelligent hodge-podge of period drama, revisionist history, psychological study and quixotic stunt. JWin.Author: JWin
Cast & crew
Director: Menno Meyjes
Producer: András Hámori
Cast: John Cusack, Noah Taylor, Molly Parker, Ulrich Thomsen, David Horovitch, Janet Suzman, Peter Capaldi, Kevin McKidd, John Grillo, Leelee Sobieski full cast
Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers
Duration: 108 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'
The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing
What do you think?
Post your review now