Jellybean
04-22-21, 02:35
So, when I saw the trailer for this back when it came out, I pretty much wrote it off as "oh God, here we go again more lame bullshit that will get hot because everyone is a nazi these days". I'm also a mite tired of the 'when all else fails, shit on the Germans' hollywood trope. Ugh. And the commercials looked SO much like all that rolled into one movie.
Well, this popped up on Amazon Prime a while back and I was bored one evening so I said, alright...just ONCE for lulz, since I was in the mood to risk rolling my eyes out of their sockets that day.
I gotta admit...I was actually somewhat pleasantly surprised to find out that the ads lied. I still see it kinda as a 'one time watch' as I wasn't totally enthralled, but they did a lot better and more nuanced job of covering things during that timeframe than I thought they would. There's still some tropish moments, but oddly enough they more or less land within the context of what I think the movie POV was going for.
In short, the movie covers end-of-war daily-life Germany through the child-like interpretation of Jojo, a random kid who is kind of a pathetic 'mamma's boy'. His only real friend among the other Hitler Youth is "Yorki", also kind of an odd-kid-out (and who pretty much steals the whole movie, seriously, he's hilarious).
Despite being fairly pathetic at everything, Jojo wants to become one of Hitler's personal bodyguards, and convinces himself in typical kid-logic fashion that if he can catch a Jew, he's a shoe in.
Then he finds out his mom is hiding one in a closet...
Overall I'd say a B, just for the interesting take on the subject matter.
And Yorki...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FGHCI0JsRM
His utterly deadpan "oh god" moment with the Brit accent and everything gets me every time. ;)
Well, this popped up on Amazon Prime a while back and I was bored one evening so I said, alright...just ONCE for lulz, since I was in the mood to risk rolling my eyes out of their sockets that day.
I gotta admit...I was actually somewhat pleasantly surprised to find out that the ads lied. I still see it kinda as a 'one time watch' as I wasn't totally enthralled, but they did a lot better and more nuanced job of covering things during that timeframe than I thought they would. There's still some tropish moments, but oddly enough they more or less land within the context of what I think the movie POV was going for.
In short, the movie covers end-of-war daily-life Germany through the child-like interpretation of Jojo, a random kid who is kind of a pathetic 'mamma's boy'. His only real friend among the other Hitler Youth is "Yorki", also kind of an odd-kid-out (and who pretty much steals the whole movie, seriously, he's hilarious).
Despite being fairly pathetic at everything, Jojo wants to become one of Hitler's personal bodyguards, and convinces himself in typical kid-logic fashion that if he can catch a Jew, he's a shoe in.
Then he finds out his mom is hiding one in a closet...
Overall I'd say a B, just for the interesting take on the subject matter.
And Yorki...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FGHCI0JsRM
His utterly deadpan "oh god" moment with the Brit accent and everything gets me every time. ;)