Anthropoid

Ellis had been thinking for so long about how he was actually going to conceive the film when suddenly filming started here. The result is a jagged mutant that straddles the line between a classic wartime love in the times of Nazi cholera and a stripped-down historical reenactment with occasional glimpses of Hollywood narrative crutches (the recurring motifs of putting a bullet in the chamber, Shakespeare, Geislerová under the hose). The result is a dull grey where you don't give a damn. The romantic storyline is uninteresting because the characters are completely alien and impenetrable, and the relationship entanglements in turn detract from the reenactment. There are strengths in the sub-elements that Ellis can dabble in, especially in the second half, and that's why the assassination itself and the action climax in the church manage to hook you appropriately with their relentlessness, intensity, and confused subjective camerawork. This raises the question, then, of where the scenes came from where we have a close-up of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in the hands of one character reading perhaps the most famous line from the play to another, whereupon he dramatically slams the volume shut and says "That was Shakespeare." The only thing that thus ties the whole thing together is the fecal brownish filter with which it is smeared. And by the way, the ones who once again lose the whole Operation Anthropoid thing here are the Germans, who again fill their roles from dozens of computer shooter games, where their role is either to yell German and bully civilians in the street, or to yell German and climb into the heroes' wounds. That's how you conquer two-thirds of Europe, it takes real savvy. (19/01/2017)

The assassination of Heydrich is undoubtedly a very strong theme, which this time was taken up by several countries, which had both advantages and disadvantages. For me personally, the biggest stumbling block was the unconvincing and dull performance of the actors in the first two thirds of the film, which was to some extent also caused by the fact that none of the actors used their mother tongue. I would honestly put the romantic line aside completely, because I found it mostly redundant. Nevertheless, the film picks up from the interrogations and the final church siege was very well shot and staged. Pity about the lacklustre and uninteresting (two-thirds of the way through) start. (08/04/2020)

A solid performance with the likeable Cillian Murphy/Jamie Dornan duo. The first half is a bit too slow for me, but after the assassination the film picks up decently, there are some disturbing scenes and it all culminates with an excellent church shootout that has a lot of pizzazz and drive. A decent film about us. 75% (25/10/2016)

The expectations were sky-high and the result was definitely worth it. Having said that, I definitely recommend watching this movie – if possible – with dubbing. This might be the only movie for which I would recommend that, but at the same time I believe that it’s still better than listening to that “Czech” English spoken by English actors, which, according to the director, was his intention to be able to differentiate Czechs from Germans. And I don’t hold it against him. I got over it quite quickly, but I understand that it might be grating for some people. What was worse was the camera, which in some crucial action scenes was flying around like a rag on the broom wielded by a Ukrainian cleaning lady. But what the hell, I got over that as well and I have to admit that despite some uncertainty during the assassination scene, I was literally excited about the final scene in the church. And that was despite the camera flying about, which added the right amount of confusion to the scene and thus created undoubtedly the best war scene of the past few years. But it’s not only about these individual things. Anthropoid deserves praise mainly as a whole. I don’t think I’ve seen such cooperation between Czech and English filmmakers. That cooperation alone makes the movie unique in my mind. If somebody is giving this a two-star review, I guess they watched the same movie but didn’t perceive what I did. This was the first time that somebody wanted to take a story from Czech, or rather Czechoslovak history and present it to the whole world. And Adam Ellis was a great choice in my opinion. This incredibly sad story deserves global attention. And I believe that Anthropoid did its best! (03/10/2016)

A bleak, exclusively interior film with little panache. It's a bit of a shame, but you don't come across Spielberg every day, so the artistry is for next time. Fortunately, Anthropoid makes up for this with passion for the material, tenacity and a gripping last half hour. Murphy and Dornan are awesome. The testimonial value is of course next level. (25/10/2016)