A minor confession: I am not a real fan of movies from the late 60s-70s. This is for a wide variety of meanings, mostly because filmmakers from that era seemed to have lost the ability to pace their films (hello Deer Hunter!). Also, action scenes from the era are often ridiculously bad (and I know I’m just imposing modern sensibilities on films from 30 years ago, but too bad). Long story short, I can’t promise that any review of a movie from the period will be unbiased.
Anyway, on to The Boys from Brazil. The first bit of awesomeness is the fact that Steve Gutenberg is in this movie, and he looks about 12, also he looks way buffer then in the Police Academy movies (does noticing that say something about me that I’d rather not say? gee I hope not). Whatever, it doesn’t really matter because you quickly gets the old Nazi-knife-in-the-gut and it’s left to ace Nazi hunter Laurence Olivier (who I thought was going to turn out to be the evil Nazi before I saw the movie, what after Marathon Man and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) to defeat the evil Joseph Mengele (played by Gregory Peck who honestly looks kinda fat, also it’s bullshit that Atticus Finch is the bad guy, fuck this movie) and his Hitler clones. Ok, so evil Hitler clones is an awesome idea for a movie, especially for a 30 year old movie, although I liked it better when they just saved his brain (see: They Saved Hitler’s Brain). Strangely enough (although the cast should give it away), this is actually a serious movie.
So, how is it? Actually pretty darn entertaining. No long, unnecessary scenes or incredibly dated cinematography. Plus mini-Hitlers! The kid actor who plays the mini-Hitler kinda sucks, but what can you expect from that Nazi bastard? On the other hand, Olivier is great (duh), Peck is pretty good too (looking very much like Stacy Keech) . I mean the plot is ridiculous and all, but the movie is made well enough that you don’t really notice unless you stop and think.
<ASIDE> Speaking of stuff that you don’t really notice unless you stop and think: In the new season of Entourage Vince is all broke and whatnot and can’t get a job. My question: what happened to Silo the movie he was going to make at the end of the 4th season? It’s logical that the studio cancelled after Medellin bombed but they could at least include a throwaway line about it, seriously it’s like 4 episodes in and not a mention of it, or of Billy. I know Entourage isn’t really supposed to be a show with a tight plot, but seriously folks. </ASIDE>
Plus, at the end (SPOILERS) they just leave a bunch of mini-Hitlers sprinkled all around the world. I don’t know how good of an idea that really was. (END SPOILERS). Anyway, definitely a movie worth watching. But you really should have known that after I mentioned clone Hitlers. Put it on the Netflix queue.
