Max (2002)

Brilliant and touching

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I don't remember how I got introduced to this movie but had the rare urge to order it from ebay after reading a review of it that got me interested. I read that "The movie has stirred some concerns that humanizing Hitler may desensitize us to his historic evil." I think that idea is preposterous. First, the movie does not really humanize him much. And secondly,I think we SHOULD be asking questions such as what Hitler might have become under other circumstances. It also touches on questions about how art was impacted by modernity, how Hitler could be viewed as sort of a piece of performance art that embodied many of the forces at work in History, at that time. There were some good performances, especially by the young Hitler. I found John Kusack convincing only half of the time. Unfortunately, the story and script wanders. None of the ideas are developed. I find the persona of Rothmann, a fictional character, distracting from the questions about Hitler, and those questions about Hitler keep me distracted from caring about Rothmann.

Someone named holmest-2 entered a user comment fraught with claims of inaccuracies in the film Max. Holmest-2 is most certainly the inaccurate one; I find it implausible that this person has even read a full biography of Hitler unless he includes Mein Kampf as an accurate portrayal of Hitler's life. In the excellent biography The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (by James Cross Giblin), his life as a destitute street person is described. He tried to make it as an artist, was aided by a Jewish art dealer, was known to ramble about various political subjects in the day room of his government paid housing unit. Hitler captivated no one at the beginning. He was, indeed a pathetic loner, who would be befriended and then disappear as if to never get to close to anyone. For several months he was actually living on the streets of Munich. He was also painfully terrified of women and could only idealize them, yet not speak to them. Whatever holmest-2 said about Hitler's life in the immediate post WW 1 era is just plain wrong. To me the film showed Hitler as I had envisioned him in his lost years before he found his voice, his talent, and his vicious, evil inhuman purpose.

As far as the genre of 'Biopics' go, there have been critical hits in the form of Ed Wood and Walk the Line and then there have been even bigger hits in the form of Raging Bull. Whilst I liked all those films to a certain degree, I am always sceptical on whether or not someone's life story will actually make for good film material. Film's are supposed to suspend reality by transporting us into a fictional world with fictional people and various acts – it can be Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle or it can be Pulp Fiction; it doesn't matter – truth is none of it's real and the odd obvious continuity error that pops up now and again only convinces us further.So, for someone to actually have their life put into a world of film must mean that they've gone through some pretty harsh lessons and come out on the other side for the best. It doesn't matter if you're Edward Wood, Jake La Motta, Johnny Cash or even Adolf Hitler – if your story isn't interesting or doesn't make for good film material then it isn't going to make a good or great film. You must remember that the film Max is called Max after Max Rothman (Cusak); not 'Adolf' after Adolf Hitler which is an easy thing to do seeing as the film revolves around Hitler, played by Noah Taylor whose previous film to this was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – perhaps on it's own a biopic of a computer game character? What is fascinating in this film is the character study of Hitler; ruler of Germany from 1933 and reason so many people needlessly died during the second world war and the holocaust. What isn't as fascinating is the story of Max Rothman and the character of him: a 1910s German equivalent of perhaps a yuppie as he does his best to live the ultra-good life. Funny then, how the film is indeed called Max as the emphasis is supposedly supposed to be on him.In terms of authenticity of the era; watching Noah Taylor act Adolf Hitler rather well and the overall theme of the film, you can have few complaints. A minor quibble may be the accents early on regarding Hitler's soldier comrades as they flick between English and Scottish as Hitler remains German and the general feeling Max feels like a TV Movie but showing Hitler in a light such as this one is a very rare and thankful thing to achieve, especially given the fact director Menno Meyjes is Dutch and the fact Holland lost a lot of life as well as scenery due to Hitler and his ideas of a perfect Europe. If the film had been made by a German showing Hitler as a somewhat misunderstood being, you can probably predict the uproar that'd happen – it's worth saying here that I haven't seen 2004's Downfall yet.Max is a film that suggests Hitler didn't necessarily start out 'evil' but of course none of us do. Dictator's such as Hitler; Saddam Hussein; Joseph Stalin and Julius Cesar all have events and incidences in their lives that sway them into that realm of insanity through power and they took it out on their own people. Most of us will know Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in the First World War; something that is mentioned at the very beginning of the film when a statistic comes up: most of the Germans dead in WWI were Jewish; thus, they failed to "win the war for us". But this thinking is blurred and Max is a film that shows how Hitler came to this conclusion in a rather messy and inconsistent way. I'm not sure when Hitler discovered this statistic of Jews in WWI but when it comes to anti-Semitic remarks around his person and puppet shows mimicking the Jews and giving of a message that they are polluting Germany, Hitler is unimpressed and labels them all anti-Semitic fools. But here's the flaw: if Hitler like everyone else knew of the statistic given to us at the beginning of the film then why didn't he join in the mocking of the Jews? Consequently, perhaps these events like the puppet show and everything else never happened and this is a poor representation of Hitler in his youth if this is the case.A film that deals with a descent into madness can often be extremely effective: Taxi Driver, American Psycho and perhaps a further biopic: Raging Bull but Max deals with Hitler's descent in a heavy handed way. The film suggests that things like puppet shows; soldier banter and anti-Semitic lectures from captains got to Hitler and swayed him. I feel this is inaccurate since the real reason Hitler rose and became the enthusiastic dictator he was was due to the Treaty of Versailles: Germany's limitation of national defence which angered Hitler. The film also shows Hitler to be more worried about his lack of artistic skills and his need to dictate rather than focus on what really made Hitler angry: the Treaty; Germany's actual state in terms of defence and finance and Jews "loosing them the war". I don't want this to sound like I'm knocking the film too much or supporting Hitler in any way at all. The film is shot well and given great mise-en-scene; Hitler's dictator scenes are fascinating as are the pieces of art he comes up with nearer the end to do with the Nazi regime but by this point, I was not convinced Hitler as a character had been developed in the final third that well; nor were his reasons for becoming 'evil'. It's because of this that the film perhaps feels like it is leaving a little too much up to our own knowledge of Hitler and WWII to fill in the gaps.

I am surprised to have watched this movie not just once but thrice. I at first really did not care for it especially when it talked about Hitler when he was an aspiring artist. I was not too enthusiastic but having sit through it, I was quite fascinated. The movie shows how young Hitler was struggling to get noticed for his artwork and talk about angst that Noah Taylor shows as Adolf in not knowing where to pursue his talents, politics or art. My only complaint I have about this film, and nothing against John Cusack but I think he was miscasted in this movie. The reason why I say this is because most of the actors in this movie have a European accent not necessarily a German one. Mr. Cusack is the only one in this movie talking like an American with an American accent. Mr. Cusack does not attempt to use a European accent or anything to cover his American speak. I just felt that he was out of place in this movie with his American accent. For most people they may not care but I found it hard not to notice while everyone else around him sound different. I felt that Mr. Cusack just got off doing the CITY HALL movie and immediately got thrown in to this one. The idea of him being a German cavalry officer definitely took a leap of imagination with his straight American accent. Other than this detail, I did find the movie interesting. The director tries to show us young Hitler as a very troubled man who's artistic abilities are just ignored and this does not help to tame the intense hatred that Noah Taylor brings out very effectively. At times the viewer would think that Noah was possessed with Hitler's spirit when Noah starts to rant and rave to the audience. I must say that this film is not for the CRASH, BOOM, BAM action flick fans, but if history or pseudo-history interests you , then you might like it. I WILL SAY THAT THIS FILM MAY NOT BE HISTORICALY ACCURATE TO THE ACTUAL PORTRAYAL OF ADOLF Hitler. I think its more of a WHAT IF movie and as that it is quite enjoyable.