Some assassins (and would-be assasins) are highly politcally motivated. Others are just crazy. Oliver Hirschbiegel's film about Georg Elser, who single-handedly attempted to Kill Adolf Hitler in 1939, suggests he was neither; or at least, that his political antipathy to the Fuehrer was driven by a more generalised disgust at the sheer ugliness and banal brutality of life under the Nazis. Hisrschbiegl previously made the brilliant 'Downfall' about Hitler's final days; this film is somewhat less awesome, in part because it focuses on Elser's arrest and interrogation, and tells the story of his earlier life in flashback, removing some of its sense of immediacy. It's still an interesting story, not about a hero in the classical sense, but about a good man, and a brave one.
Review of 13 Minutes
