Swing Kids
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.15 You Save: $5.84 (58%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.79 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Swing Kids
Movie Review: A Swinging Good Time
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie is amazing. Robert Sean Leonard and Christian Bale give amazing performances. The storyline is really powerful with messages that go beyond the WWII era. I first watched this movie in a German class, but bought it really soon afterwards... it's extremely powerful.Movie Review: Americano kind of Germans
Summary: 4 Stars
The only complaint I have about this movie is that the actors, while all are magnificent, didn't bother to take the extra time and effort to learn to speak with authentic and fluent German accents...the way that Joel Grey did for "Cabaret", as the MC.Movie Review: Simply outstanding
Summary: 4 Stars
Such a great movie!The age were is located the action, the actor's perfomance, and specially the soundtrack make this movie that kind of films that "you have to see". Definetely, one of my favorites.
Movie Review: Swing high...
Summary: 4 Stars
I really enjoyed the music & the dancing. This movie is worth watching if you enjoy dramas.Movie Review: Swingtime for Hitler
Summary: 3 Stars
When I first saw the trailer for this film years ago, I thought to myself that this had to be the most preposterous subject for a movie. Imagine: all singing, all dancing, all Hitler. As a fan of bad movies I resolved to see this as soon as it hit my local cinema. Unfortunately, it missed my theater completely, as well as a lot of others, because the flick died after two weeks or so of release. Apparently, a lot of other people had the much the same reaction to that trailer, only they were more frugal with their money than I was willing to be. It wasn't until I saw the film on cable that I realized it was not nearly so bad as the trailer suggested. "Swing Kids" is actually based on a little known footnote to history. It has always been assumed that in Nazi Germany everyone thought and acted as one. Not so, especially among the youth. While the Hitler Youth was still the state-approved organization, it had lost its appeal, becoming seen as part of an establishment that allowed no channel for rebellion.
Youth rebellion in Germany, as in the United States, was by no means monolithic. In the working-class sections of Dusseldorf, Cologne and Leipzig, gangs such as the Edelweiss Pirates ruled the streets, fighting the authorities and preying on the Hitler Youth (who themselves were bullies, but could not be touched by law enforcement). In the middle and upper class neighborhoods of Hamburg, resistance took the form of English-style dress and an addiction to American swing music. Known as "Swingjugend," they were just as annoying to the authorities as the Edelweiss Pirates, though nowhere near as dangerous. (In 1944 the Pirates murdered the Gestapo chief of Cologne.) By the time war broke out in 1939, most swing kids were either in the HJ or labor camps.
Unfortunately, "Swing Kids" gets off to a bad start by barely mentioning its subject in a 30-second preamble before getting into the plot itself, which concerns the friendship of three devotees of swing music, Peter (Robert Sean Leonard), Thomas (Christian Bale) and Arvid (Frank Whaley). We learn, quickly, that Peter's father was hauled off by the State for being a dissident, and that Arvid is also an outcast because he is clubfooted, and therefore a cripple in the eyes of society. (Ironic, in that Goebbels was also clubfooted)Thomas is a lost soul, caught up only in the friendship of Peter and the music.
Caught by the police for a stupid prank, Peter is rescued by his friendly local Gestapo Agent (a brilliant turn by Kenneth Branaugh, who, for some reason (?), had his name removed from the credits. Hmmm.)and forced into the Hitler Youth. There he is joined by Thomas, who will not see his friend suffer alone. But as time goes on, Thomas is more and more taken in by the trappings of the Hitler Youth and what they offer: acceptance, which he does not get at home. There is no such respite for Arvid, who, as the film progresses, becomes ever more morose and alienated, choosing suicide before the authorites get to do it for him.
The ending is not only predictable, but also cloying, with Peter relapsing back into his former life. As he is taken away by the authorities, younger brother Willy grabs Peter's umbrella and pledges alliegence towards all things Swing with an obligatory "Swing Heil!" Branaugh denounces his former project as a case of misspent passion and we can well say this of the movie as a whole. Too many opportunities are missed and we are left with the feeling that perhaps this would have worked better as a documentary (there were swing kids in pre-war Japan also). This was a movie designed to take advantage of Christian Bale, who lit up the screen in Disney's previous "Newsies," but the ambiguous script and plodding direction let eveyone down and make this, like "Eddie and the Cruisers" a movie best enjoyed on cable or DVD. And at the price of the DVD it is well worth it, if only for the performances of Branaugh and Bale.
Besides, if you already own "the Producers," what could be more interesting than to have the two musicals based on Nazi Germany?