Also checked out the Post-WW2 drama Operation Finale… a film dumped in the final days of the Summer movie season that stars Oscar Isaac and Ben Kinsley. That some good actors for such a dreary, no-marketing release. Surely this was a mistake!
No, not a mistake. This is a misfire of a movie involving good actors with bland material.
The film is about the Mossad’s hunt and capture of the Architect of the Final Solution – Adoplh Eichman – when its confirmed he’s living in semi-hiding in Argentine in 1960. Oscar Isaac plays the Nazi hunter and Kinsley is the Nazi. The first half of the flick is the search and kidnapping of him and the second half is their attempt to get him out of the country… and to get him to sign an agreement that he can be tried in Israel. To make the abduction and trial in a nation where he didn’t commit his crimes legal. This means it’s a battle of wits and wills between the two men.
Kingsley plays Eichman as a flawed, evil man… but still a man. A human. And the battle of wits between the two actors is… bland. This is the kind of movie that needs to demand we see more scenes, more dialog, between two actors at the top of their game. Dialog that crackles and horrifies and intrigues. This movie did none of that… and I’ve seen movies that have done so much better, even covering some of the same material. This film kind of begs to have a purpose if it can’t pull of the one thing it needs to do well.
So, it’s a misfire. Unless you need to learn that Nazis are very bad people and Germany did some very bad things. Not a terrible history lesson, I suppose… but there are better, more energetic movies that show the aftermath of WW2 better. This can be skipped.
Score: 68