The Boys from Brazil (1978)

I love this movie so much

Sorry, this movie sucks

Good movie but grossly overrated

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It's a terrible feeling when you have to admit that an actor you love did a bad job in a movie. But, as much as I love Gregory Peck, he was pretty awful in The Boys from Brazil. Whoever thought it was a good idea to cast Atticus Finch as a Nazi should have his head examined. It just didn't work. Greg is a wonderful actor, and he's been very convincing in villainous roles in the past, but in this movie, I found myself wondering how he could keep a straight face while delivering his lines. His German accent was pretty atrocious, flowing in and out during every sentence, and when he would shout and try to act passionately "Hitler-esque", it felt like a bad community theater performance. I actually felt sorry for him. Obviously, as talented as he is, this role asked him to use talents he didn't have.The movie starts out introducing us to Steve Guttenberg in Paraguay as he follows James Mason, Gregory Peck, and other Nazi war criminals. He takes pictures of them, records their conversations, and reports his findings to famous Nazi hunter Laurence Olivier. The entire movie is supposed to be a tension-filled mystery, but since I guessed the big surprise an hour before Laurence Olivier did, I was disappointed. How stupid is he? He's supposed to be brilliant and famous and good at what he does, but it sure took him forever to figure out Gregory Peck's master Nazi plan! The Boys from Brazil is a very famous movie, so I suppose you have to watch it in order to decide that it's grossly overrated. Besides Gregory Peck's nice suits, there wasn't really anything I liked about this movie. Jerry Goldsmith must have thought he was writing a theme for Doctor Zhivago 2, but his ridiculous waltz didn't fit this "thriller" at all. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why Laurence Olivier was nominated for an Oscar for his performance, expect that Hollywood wanted to reassure the public that yes, they do indeed hate Nazis.

Much like The Omen, Don't Look Now, The Exorcist, Halloween and The Wicker Man, Franklin J. Schaffner's The Boys From Brazil is one of the best thrillers from the 1970s. Yet it has never enjoyed the same critical kudos and audience awareness that the films mentioned above enjoy. I have never understood why, because in my opinion, this is one of the best films of it's era. I remember catching this film on TV late one night as a teenager, and I've never forgotten it. Re watching it, it's just as unsettling, tense and nerve-wrenching as when I was young, perhaps even more so, because now as an adult, having read about the real life Dr. Josef Mengele, the film has more resonance to me now. Franklin J. Schaffner really was a chameleon filmmaker, I was surprised to find that the same director of this film made Planet of the Apes and Patton. However on closer inspection, his earlier films do have a reoccurring style. Back in the 70s the possibility of cloning Hitler seemed implausible, but now the film is even more chilling because we are now capable of creating such monsters. Laurence Olivier is brilliant as the aging Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, and Gregory Peck gives a chilling performance as Dr. Josef Mengele. The music is haunting, and the bleak cinematography adds to the overall feeling of dread and inevitability. The ending feels a bit rushed, but that's a minor complaint. Few films have stuck in my mind quite like Boys From Brazil. It is a must watch for genre fans and film buffs in general.

Like its sister film MARATHON MAN, THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL is a sinister and realistic thriller that looks at the question of surviving Nazis hiding out in South America. Did they survive and did some of them continue their sinister human experiments that were started in the concentration camps? While I think MARATHON MAN has the edge in terms of being an enjoyable, all-time classic, THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL is still a very good, taut thriller that just happens to have an excellent ensemble cast to boot.Two old-time heavyweights are pitted against each other here: a virtually unrecognisable Gregory Peck as sinister Nazi scientist Dr Josef Mengele, and Laurence Olivier as the doddery old Jew hot on his tail. The two men don't meet until their climatic showdown, but what a treat it is when they do! Throughout the film, both actors remind us why they were considered worldwide stars. Peck is utterly repulsive as the ruthless Nazi, but Olivier steals the film as the sympathetic Nazi hunter in a reversal of the role he played in MARATHON MAN.The film is slow paced, but remains engaging throughout, and the suspense never ceases. There's globetrotting action, assassins and a scary storyline including cloning as well as Jeremy Black playing an extremely creepy child. This is an unashamedly old-fashioned film that doesn't rely on fight scenes or car chases to tell the story, and here intelligent scripting and fine cinematography win out over the usual humdrum staples. The supporting cast is remarkable: James Mason as a Nazi, Denholm Elliott as a shifty bureaucrat, Steve Guttenberg surprisingly good in one of his earliest roles as a tragic investigator, along with the likes of Walter Gotell, Michael Gough, Wolfgang Preiss and even a couple of British actresses in brief roles: Prunella Scales and Linda Hayden. The last twenty minutes or so are absolutely riveting as the story comes to a head, and it finishes in an extremely satisfying way too. As chilling a film as any horror, THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL is a fine example of the thriller genre at its best.

The re-birth of the Third Reich has proved to be an oddly desirable topic for many an inspiring schlock-maker. Titles such as They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968) and Gestapo's Last Orgy (1977) come to mind - movies from a bygone era when cinema-goer's would travel to like their local drive-in or tune into their TV sets late at night and expect to see something cheap, awful, but most likely hilarious. The Boys from Brazil, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (Planet of the Apes (1968), Patton (1970)), is an event movie with a budget and an A-list cast that plots a Jewish Nazi-hunter against a tyrannical doctor hell-bent on creating a new fuhrer.Such a mainstream movie could be labelled as insensitive for creating outlandish fiction out of such a terrible event and for profiteering from it, but The Boys from Brazil, although handsomely filmed and mostly well-performed, is pure pantomime exploitation. This is evident from the moment we meet Ezra Lieberman, an ageing Austrian Nazi hunter played by Laurence Olivier, who delivers his lines in an accent so ludicrous he could be voicing a Disney character. When a conspiracy to assassinate 94 civil servants headed by SS surgeon Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck) is brought to Lieberman's attention by young Jewish activist Kohler (Steve Guttenberg) - who quickly vanishes - the old man travels throughout Europe to investigate the potential targets.Mengele's plot seems like random, senseless madness at first, but it doesn't take long to figure out what's going on. The goal, when revealed, is utterly preposterous but may have been scarily plausible if executed with care. But The Boys from Brazil is often camp, with Peck especially hamming it up and gobbling up the scene whenever he appears. He's the best thing in it - a moustached, maniacal lunk with the complexion of a pint of milk - and has greatest line of the film when he shouts "shut up, you stupid bitch!" to the unfortunate wife of an SS officer. It all leads to fisticuffs at the climax between the frail Lieberman and the bulky Mengele, which despite the extraordinary levels of gore and the presence of three angry Doberman, is unintentionally hilarious. Weird, absurd, but undeniably fun, this is pure nazisploitation polished by a talented director.