Waste of time

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

A masterpiece doomed to go unrecognized. Not too many people would like it or even sit through it, but in fact it's one of the best holocaust-related films ever made. Hateful reviews have commented on the fact that the film is disturbing and weird - or about the absurdity of a man surviving the holocaust by acting like a dog for the entertainment of a Nazi officer; is it any more absurd than the idea of people stamped with numbers or shoved into ovens? In the face of a horrifically absurd reality, insanity is often a valid option. Most WWII films center on the partisans, the heroes, the ones who kept their dignity and humanity in the face of genocide. But not everyone did. A major goal of Hitler's action was not just to destroy the Jews, but to dehumanize them first. And in many cases it worked. That's what this film is about - the loss of humanity, the feelings of guilt shared by the ones who survived at the expense of their own most basic human dignities, and it's small wonder that it's difficult for most to swallow.Paul Schrader made a fantastic job adapting Yoram Kanyuk's novel; reviews blaming him of 'emotional detachment' miss the point that this detachment is very intentional. The cold and distant feeling experienced while watching it is very different from the pathos of Schindler's List or Life Is Beautiful, and, rather than draw the viewer into the actual events, brings them face to face with their very madness and incomprehensibility. Jeff Goldblum portrays that feeling perfectly in what may be the most powerful performance of his career - reminding me, at times, of Roy Scheider in All That Jazz. Master-character actors Willem Dafoe and Derek Jacobi compliment him perfectly without stealing the show, and some of Israel's biggest stars join in to complete the ensemble cast. Bottome line - a terrific film, and instantly a favorite of mine, but I hesitate to recommend it to anyone for fear of being blamed for it later. Watch it at your own risk, with an open mind, and with an empty stomach.

I read all the reviews for this film and I have to agree with someone who once said that rectums and opinions are something that everyone shares. The film was not liked by some for not displaying what they thought it should. I liked it because it resonated with me on a certain level.Earlier this week I was riding a streetcar in Toronto and saw a number of homeless people begging on the streets, and wondered why are they there and I am here. I am not that ambitious or a go getter but somehow I have survived the last twenty years of economic downturns, where they did not.That point comes up in this film, the protagonist is haunted by the fact that he survived where so many did not. It also made me think for the first time in my life, the survivors of the death camps must have had some severe mental heath issues, a theme I do not think has been addressed much in the past with the exception of the Pawn Broker.The film really did hit home and regardless if you think the theme of the holocaust has been done to death, (as one Danish reviewer did) this film had a different slant on it. It made me think deeply about things that frankly never occurred to me before.For that reason I rate this film high not because I think the other earlier reviewers are wrong but simply because I saw it differently.A good film, it might be disturbing, it might annoy but watch it at least once.

I would never,never had gone thru the process to write a review unless it was the kind of movie like this: one Part One flew over the cuckoo nest and one part Earaserhead and one part Anne Frank and one part Elephant Man.It is grotesque yet teaches lessons and confronts life and all of its concerns.By far the best horror movie I have ever seen in my life!William Dafoe is at his sickest best and yet he is looking for and getting no sympathy or even pity.He is a horrible,horrible monster that could only have been created by the Nazi Hate Machine.The young boy that plays the dog does it with earnestness and yet resists the urge to make it into child's play or a sick comedy.Sorry for the simplicity but it is my very first review of a movie.Loved it!

There you have at least two great actors who really give what they can but there's no director.These two actors, Goldblum and Dafoe, are all alone in this insane brain sh... Nobody can explain them their purpose and so the audience is lost in this strange story which probably wants to make sense but there is no one who can press any sense and logic out of it.It probably could have been a movie that is strange and disturbing and which make you think about humor and hope but sadly it's a movie which is strange, embarrassing and stupid.There should have been a director, who is just as crazy as the story itself. I think Paul Schrader is a too boring person.