The Boys From Brazil
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Movie Reviews of The Boys From Brazil
Movie Review: A scary film with modern day ramifications
Summary: 5 Stars
Lawrence Oliver and Gregory Peck are chillingly adept as Nazi Hunter and Nazi in this surprisingly good 1978 Science-Fiction.
Also look out for James Mason, Prunella Scales and Steve Guttenberg who have small roles in this intriguing movie that is surprisingly suspenseful.
Oliver plays a determined Nazi Hunter based on real life Simon Wiesenthal who sets out to find the elusive Dr Mengele, portrayed by Peck who has been hiding out in South America since the end of the war.
In his search Oliver makes a ghastly discovery: Mengele has been experimenting with genetics and has managed to clone several copies of Adolf Hitler, all now living in different countries growing up as supposedly ordinary boys with a deadly difference. Mengele's plan is to recreate Hitler's early in as many ways as possible, from placing the children with docile women married to aggressive and overbearing fathers, to the death of the boys fathers early on in the cloned Hitler's lives. Mengele hopes the environment he has woven for these boy-clones will be self-fulfilling and that they will follow in Hitler's footsteps, thus resurrecting the Nazi order of 30 years ago.
What Mengele hasn't counted on though is the interference of a determined Nazi Hunter in the shape of Oliver, as well as Israel's deadly Secret Service in the guise of Mossad who have no intension of a Fourth Reich rising from the ashes of the Third. There are several disturbing scenes such as Mengele's attempt to genetically alter some South American Indians, and the Doberman dogs trained to kill on command. One of the best performances is given by the young cloned Hitler played to perfection by Jeremy Black whose vivid blue eyes are a constant reminder of who and what he could become.
Mengele is ironically killed by one of the clones who finds out that the Doctor ordered the death of his father, and in a calculated act of compassion spares Oliver's life, and inadvertently saves his own because Oliver is the only person left alive who knows in where all over the world the cloned children are living.
Oliver refuses to tell Mossad where the children are, because he knows they will be killed, thus bringing into the storyline the element of ethics where genetics is concerned. Despite heavy critical panning, "The Boys from Brazil" is both suspenseful and chilling and Oliver and Peck give credible performances as Jew and Nazi hell-bent on each other's destruction.
Considering this film was made in a time when bad film were in abundance "The Boys from Brazil" is worth renting or buying if you have the chance. It probably is one of the first films to look at the concept of genetics with any real intelligence and for that alone you can forgive Peck his over dyed black hair, and Oliver's attempt at a proper German accent.
Movie Review: To Kill an Albatross
Summary: 5 Stars
I know that most people regard "The Boys From Brazil" as "over the top." So what! This movie is based on an Ira Levin novel, and part of the fun is that it is "over the top," just like "The Stepford Wives" and "Rosemary's Baby" (also by Levin). However, Franklin J. Schaffner's direction brings together a technical crew led by Director of Photography Henri Decae ("Purple Noon")and composer Jerry Goldsmith (who collaborated with Schaffner on "Patton" and "Papillon" among others) to deliver definite "A-movie" credentials to what would otherwise be a movie with a great cast, but cheesy sets and production values, like "Soylent Green."Gregory Peck gives the performance of his career as evil Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. People are so used to seeing him play all-American upstanding hero types in movies like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Gentleman's Agreement" (coincidentally, in which Peck plays a newspaperman trying to expose anti-Semitism), that the viewer can see the glee he feels when playing the demented genetecist. Sure, it's a hammy performance, but that doesn't mean it's poorly acted; Peck's Mengele ranks with other great hammy performances, such as Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry and Orson Welles as......every role he's ever played.
Laurence Olivier plays the Jewish Nazi-hunter Ezra Liebermann a bit over the top as well, but quite convincingly, particularly when he drags on a cigarette for his nicotine fix; by the expression on his face, you can see it's simultaneously boosting him while killing him slowly. Liebermann is based on real-life figures Serge Klarsfeld and Simon Wiesenthal. For a Brit, Olivier delivers his lines with a more than passable Yiddisha accent that sounds like a cross between Billy Crystal and Mel Brooks' 2000 year old man.
I'm not going to give away the surprise in this movie, but the movie lets you follow Liebermann's detective work, aided by his sister Esther, played by the always beautiful Lilli Palmer. When he finds out Mengele's evil scheme, it's quite an understated, chilling, moment (actually, the only thing in the movie that's understated at all).
Jeremy Black plays a stock charcter in Ira Levin fare, the evil child. But, this one's a spoiled brat; it reminds me of Billy Mumy's evil brat on "Twilight Zone" that kept wishing people into the cornfield.
"The Boys From Brazil" is a film that hearkens back to when "over-the-top" was called "larger than life," and when people went to the movies not to see a "slice of life," but -- as Hitchcock once quipped -- "a slice of cake."
Movie Review: WHAT a movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is so weird to write this, BUT... The first time I saw this film I had a roaring migraine headache, complete with severe nausea. IF you're a migraine sufferer, as I am, YOU understand what it's like to be stricken with one of them- you know what it's like to lay in bed, in misery and bordom trying to escape the pain. Normally, you just want to be left alone in a nice quiet, dark room and hopefully go comatose till it's all over. Anyway, early in that afternoon- BEFORE the headache part of the headache came on- the time where the only symptom is the onset of nausea, I read in my TV guide that "The Boys From Brazil" was going to be airing that evening. "Cool." me thinks, "I've been really wanting to see that film, now's my chance!" (This was Pre-DVD, Pre-VHS; Damn, this was SO long ago that it was even PRE HBO! It was plain-old-time-commercial-break-infested-TV-land; which, truth be known, was kind of a blessing for me what with the nausea and all... That night, one could call them: "hurl-breaks" !) Anyway, to shorten an already way too long story: In spite of BLINDING, COLOR ARCHING, NUCLEAR-MELTDOWN BRAIN PAIN, I was SO thrilled by this film, so completely enteretained and SURPRISED by the thing, that, migraine or no, I watched the whole dog-gone thing! MERCY! Talk about "association strengthening memory"! THIS is one film I will never, EVER forget by virttue of association... SHOOT, to this day, every time I watch it, my forehead sweats, I get kinda' achy at the base of my scull, and my stomach commences to churn. But it was WORTH it! What a GREAT flick, go ahead, buy it. You'll like it. Heck, watch it with a migraine sufferer YOU love. ;o)
Movie Review: Brilliant!
Summary: 5 Stars
Ira Levin has an eye for evil. He knows man's avarice and his tendancy to misuse the skills he has developed. It was slightly sinister in "The Stepford Wives." It was dark and unnerving in "Rosemary's Baby."
In "The Boys from Brazil," Levin strikes an uglier chord, as he couple's the greed of man with once futuristic science and technology that has become reality. This one has the added chill of being not far out of the neighborhood of possibility.
This is a powerful story that requires a powerful cast to make it on the screen. Fortunately, the combination of Gregory Peck, Sir Laurence Olivier and James Mason weaves just the right spell.
The plot is complex and yet tidy. War criminals from the Holocaust era have fled into hiding in deep, dark South America. There, with the help of the mad scientist, real life ghoul Josef Mengele, they plot to use the science of cloning to bring back their patriarchal hero. And so begins the truly alarming scheme for the rebirthing of Adolph Hitler.
"The Boy's from Brazil" is the story of truly evil men and of those who are committed to capturing them. Peck handles evil as well as he has handled loveable characters in the past. Olivier is almost sublime in his commitment to bring down the last of the Nazi monsters.
Like all of Levin's masterpieces, this one hooks you from the start and drags you along like a tin can strung to the back of a car. The movie is as captivating as the book, though the latter should not be skipped. You might read it in two nights. You might read it in one. Either way, read it. And then watch the movie.
Movie Review: THE JOY OF FINE ACTING
Summary: 5 Stars
Who cares if Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier overact in this stylish adaptation of Ira Levin's novel? These men are such great actors that they deserve it..and is it really overacting, or merely a supreme transition into some pretty flamboyant characters. Peck plays Josef Mengele, the heinous surgeon of the Third Reich, who has concocted a scheme to resurrect Hitler in the form of 94 little boys, cloned from genes from the notorious Adolf. Peck's final scene in the farmhouse in Pennyslvania is chilling, as he pleads with the little boy to fulfill his destiny. Olivier, who was ill during the filming, seems like a tired old man, but still with the energy to confront Mengele on his own terms. Watching stars of this caliber in any kind of film only shows their immense talents.
Steve Guttenberg in one of his earliest roles plays a young man whose nosiness nets him tragedy; Uta Hagen is riveting in a brief role as the adoption negotiator; Lilli Palmer is wonderful as Olivier's sister/partner; James Mason is stoically demonic as a fellow Nazi; and Jeremy Black as the four little boys possesses the same kind of evil as the children in the 'Village of the Damned'.
The recently departed Jerry Goldsmith contributes a marvelous score, and Franklin J. Schaffner's direction is terse and professional.
Not as campy as some have made it seem..it's a disturbing and timely examination of the cloning controversy.