Customer Reviews

Hitler - The Rise of Evil

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I gave "The Rise of Evil" 5 stars because that's what it deserves. The show is extremely well-constructed, cast, and directed, even if the screenplay takes some liberties with history along the way. Yes, the story could have gotten along without the dog beating scene, the one where Hitler's father abuses him violently, and probably a few others. But the dramatic effect would have been impaired.

I watched the "making of" documentary that came with my DVD before I sat down to view the 3-hour movie. Then, I watched the documentary again after seeing the show. I'd recommend this approach to others to understand why the producer and director were subject to such criticism before and after the film was finished.

When this miniseries first came out we going out of town and totally missed it. My wife and I watch very little network TV because it doesn't seem like it's designed for thinking adults. This program is very much the exception and should be a must for anyone interested in world events and the dangers of facism.

Any review of this program must include comments on the performance of Robert Carlyle who plays the adult Hitler. Although the very Scottish Mr. Carlyle may be small in stature and far-removed from Hitler's teutonic roots he is mesmerizing as der Fuehrer. Carlyle captures the part so well you worry about what he could possibly do in the future to escape type-casting. It's all there: the iron will, the vicious temper, the evil political genius. Scary, truly scary.

The other actors in the show do very well, too, and there are a lot of well-defined characters. Peter O'Toole's role in the movie is limited but he does a fine job as President Hindenburg. The decent people who are steam-rolled by the 3rd Reich were sorry victims, indeed, but that's the way it must have been.

There were some characters who were notable by their absence, like Heinrich Himmler, Reinhold Heydrich, and Martin Bormann. Also missing was much on Nazi mysticism and the occult. Maybe these missing pieces are being held for a sequel. I'd certainly be interested if there were one.

This is a good introduction to that all-encompassing epitome of evil, Hitler. While not excessively accurate from a historical standpoint, which Hitler buffs and academic types will protest, the story is well told and offers a wide range of emotion: you see Hitler as an abused child, an abject failure until the WWI experience that focused his rage, and then as a sociopathic seeker of power as a politician of genius. It evokes the time very well and has good characters, who are acted with true excellence by the fine cast.

I liked the journalist opponent, as played by Modine, who watched with amusement, then mortal fear, and serves as a kind of conscience for the German people in the film. He is excellent and convincing, along with his wife. Then there is the publisher and his wife, who are early adherents to the Party and for a time mesmerized. They too are excellent characters, mirroring another side of the German psyche that becomes increasingly ambivalent as Hitler gains power; it destroys their relationship. As I was unsure whether they were fictional characters, I looked them up and they are indeed historical figures, which makes this a first-rate bio-pic.

Then there is Carlyle, who makes a very very good Hitler. He holds himself in a way I have never seen him - more often in his career a well-meaning, almost floppy ne'er do well - as rigid, full of boiling hate, and a political shrewdness and brutality that are compelling and still frightening. Finally, there is the exceptional performance of Stormare as Roehm, the leader of the SA who is eventually murdered for political reasons, as Hitler consolidated his power. Stormare is a genuinely wonderful character actor, bringing an entire environment with him.

Recommended. It is powerful and fun and historically interesting.

Was Hitler crazy? Yes. Was he evil? How could he not be? But one thing we know is that part of the reason he rose to power was that he was also extremely charismatic and charming. to the point of inspiring devotion in his followers.

But the Hitler character in this portrayal seems rather to be auditioning for a lead in the Omen. So bat s*** crazy that no sane person could follow him for five minutes. So evil that no one would want to stay in the same room with him for five seconds. And that anyone in his company was there because they were trapped, not because they were there willingly. But that's not what his reputation at the time he rose to power said of him.

I guess I am sort of amazed that a person who caused the death of fifty million people and brought the world to ruin wasn't considered sufficiently crazy and evil enough to be portrayed as he was, without poetic license. The gross and ridiculous fictions added to this film make a mockery of the intelligence of the viewer, of the facts, and of history.

This cartoon characterization makes it too easy for us to overlook the lessons of that time. Evil isn't always black and white as it was portrayed here. That's why evil is so dangerous. But we didn't see any of that mixture in this film. He was portrayed like a young serial killer, burning his father's bees, torturing animals, etc, when the indication was he was the exact opposite with animals. That all his associates dreaded and feared him, when in fact many were and stayed devoted, even when the worst of his acts became known.

The paradox of Hitler is not that he was pure evil but that he could charm and inspire so many people, some ordinary and otherwise sane, to follow him willingly into such dark depths. How can we learn anything from this, how can we teach people to resist fatal charm when it violates their principles if we don't recognize this from history -- that one side of him enabled and ensnared for the other.

People who watch this movie will expect all evil to be obvious and plain. It isn't so simple.

It's a shame the script and characterization were so weak, because in other respects the production values were very good. I was hoping for more historical accuracy, even in a movie. This strayed so far from the truth in some respects that it became less history than fiction, and failed to document one of the real paradoxes of that time and one that should be a warning for the future, but became lost in this portrayal,

Hitler: The Rise of Evil is a three-hour mini-series that originally aired on CBS in May 2003, currently available on DVD. It opens with a handful of brief vignettes of Hitler's childhood and quickly moves to his years as a penniless street artist in Vienna, a soldier in the First World War, his rise to power within the National Socialist Party in Munich, and ends with his appointment to chancellor and assumption of the presidency upon Hindenburg's death.

I popped in the DVD with low expectations, but was struck immediately by the high production values and quality acting talent on display. Robert Carlyle is frighteningly good in the title role, demonstrating both the overwhelming confidence and madness that Hitler must have possessed. Carlyle's eyes are particularly haunting, appearing at times to be impossibly black and demonic, while at other times blue and cherubic.

Some have complained of blatant historical inaccuracies in the film. For instance, an early scene shows Hitler beating a dog for not obeying his commands, but the consensus among historians appears to be that Hitler was a dog-lover and that no account exists of him ever harming a (non-human) animal. However, taken at face value as a dramatized account of Hitler's rise to power, this one sets the bar high. I hope someone rises to the challenge with a sequel following Hitler through the War and his final days in the bunker.

This mini-series film is utterly single-minded in its absolute certainty that Hitler could not have possibly been a normal person with any redeeming qualities whatsoever. From the very start, the child playing Hitler has such a wicked, sinister sneer on his face that you doubt a mother could even love it. From the start, he's always angry, always heartless, always abusive, and incapable of anything but anger. Even the death of his mother he snarkily says it's HER fault for dying.

From a personal viewpoint, Hitler lives his public persona, but to an infinitely more pathetic single-minded degree; he rambles on and on about Jews, communists, and everything else like an anti-semitic zealot, with no pause in any aspect of his personal life to his public persona. I cannot vouch for his personal views, or his views on the Jews in private, but a recently discovered historical audio clip shows that the private Hitler was not much like the public Hitler---he had good things to say about the communists, and the Soviet war machine. You'd not likely hear this Hitler say ANYTHING good about anyone but his own servants.

Somehow the film makes Hitler so vehemently anti-Jewish while simultaneously giving him more good Jewish influences than bad---there's the Jewish doctor who helped his mother during her cancer (he could potentially blame her for it, but still a positive Jew in his life), the Jewish soldier fighting alongside him in the front lines, the Jewish captain who despite being given orders not to, pushes to have Hitler awarded an Iron Cross.

The film also goes out of the way to include as many shots of Adolf Hitler coming close to death, as if to harangue the viewer endlessly with instances of "OOH IF ONLY SHE'D LET HIM KILL HIMSELF", "OOH IF ONLY HE'D STAYED IN THE TRENCH WHEN IT WAS SHELLED", "OOH DAMMIT IF ONLY HE WERE A FEW STEPS AHEAD AND GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD!" instances, which I believe is an insult to the memory of the man who caused so much suffering in the world. Maybe the idea of Hitler dying before the chance of controlling Germany is a positive one to some people to fantasize about, but for me, it simply doesn't work... I feel as though it insults the victims of the Holocaust and the War.

Another annoying instance is that whenever Adolf Hitler's full name is mentioned by someone, blatantly sinister and evil sounding music plays in the background. Sometimes it isn't played, but it's a very frequent occurrence.


On the positive side, Robert Carlyle, on Hitler's public persona, is absolutely flawless. He perfectly encapsulates Hitler's voice, translating it in english without any loss in power, encapsulates his hand and arm motions, and the power of his speaking. Even though the movie makes no distinction between a private Hitler and a public Hitler, Carlyle fits into the role fluidly, the way of a great actor. If the filmmakers had decided to take an unbiased route, I imagine Carlyle could have done far better, perhaps award winning, in portraying the violent, passionate public Hitler, and a more sinister, secluded, Caesarian private Hitler.

Instead, the Hitler in this film, when he steps off the podium, becomes a pathetic, sad little man, ranting and raving worse than a lunatic, with whom I believe absolutely no one would dare listen to or follow. The movie craps on the person of Hitler so thoroughly, I couldn't even imagine how Germany could rally behind him---he's nothing but a rabblerouser here, and unless every single person who worked with him behind the scenes were as bats*** insane and stupid as he is in this movie, I don't see how Robert Carlyle's Adolf Hitler could have ever risen to power.

And that, perhaps, is the greatest insult of all.

I saw this when it first came on CBS. Such an excellent cast, excellent setting, yet the dialogue and overall portrayal of Hitler were poor at best. It is as though the good writers were off that week. I recommend "Downfall" or "Conspiracy" for a portrayal of Nazi politics, not this. This film had so much potential to be good and it was utterly ruined.

"Hitler-the Rise of Evil" is yet another tired and trivial attempt by Hollywood to come to terms with the reality of the monster and the monstrosity that was Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. As can always be expected with any film which has an historical person or event as its subject (and it's inevitable--and almost forgivable--given the limitations of the medium and the complexity of the subject) there is a great deal of over-simplification. The complexities of Hitler's childhood and adolescence (in particular the extraordinary and peculiar devotion he felt toward his mother) are dismissed in a handful of cliched scenes. Men who were major figures in the rise of the National Socialist Party are ignored or given short shrift (Goering, Goebbels, Kurt von Schieler and others), while the roles of others, such as Putzi Hanfstengel, are exaggerated. The appalling economic conditions in Germany, which Hitler exploited so successfully in his rise, are but briefly mentioned. The role of the German industrialists (Krupp, Thyssen and others) in financing the Nazis is utterly ignored. This is due, no doubt, to trying to depict the events of forty years in less tha three hours. It should be noted--and considered--by anyone with even a passing interest in purchasing this film that author Ian Kershaw, who has written several books on Hitler's life, was asked to serve as a consultant in the production of Hitler: The Rise of Evil. He found so many falsehoods and historical inaccuracies in the script he asked to have his name removed from the project.

All that could be forgiven if the actor playing Hitler (Robert Carlyle) was in the least bit believable in the role he plays. He isn't. Carlyle never once conveys even a fraction of the incredible charisma which the real Hitler exuded (something upon which almost everyone who met Hitler would comment), a powerful component in his political success. Nor is Hitler's compelling speaking style in any way captured by the actor. He mimics Hitler's gestures and postures, but cannot convey the passion with which Hitler delivered his speeches. The speeches in this production are feeble and trite, lacking any of the power and virility that were the heart and soul of Hitler's addresses. Finally, Carlyle never truly captures the malignity, the malice, the viciousness which overshadowed everything Hitler did and said in the course of his political career. The only way any depiction of Hitler can be convincing is if viewer believes that the person he is watching can hate as deeply and constantly as the real Hitler did. In this Carlyle fails completely--and it is the worst failing of all in this production. Carlyle succeeds only in making Hitler look weak and faintly ridiculous, more buffoon than dangerous political adventurer. If, as Edmund Burke said (in a quotation which is the opening epigram of the film) "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" then the only thing necessary for the return of evil is for it to be treated as insignificant or ridiculous. That is about the only thing that "Hitler--the Rise of Evil" does well.

2 and 1/2 stars

Ironically, this miniseries is every bit as biased as the Nazi propaganda it denounces. The film relies heavily on cliched portrayals of "innocent Jews," "heroic journalists," and "evil Nazis," and in the process ends up sacrificing sophistication to enact a heavy-handed morality play. It goes without saying that the film neglected historical accuracy for the sake of painting Hitler as a demon in human guise, misrepresenting segments of Hitler's life to further its agenda.

This sort of thinking is quite silly. Though human monsters, such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Peter Kurten have existed, Hitler was not one of them. Historical research has shown that he had a number of redeeming qualities: he was a brave and good soldier and considerate to those who worked under him. Though this might make many people uncomfortable, it is only by acknowledging Hitler's humanity that we may grasp the enormity of his crime. To do otherwise is to blind ourselves to the cruelty latent (or suppressed) in us all and impair our ability to recognize it.

Unfortunately, the film's handling of as complex a character as Hitler is woefully simplistic and ultimately unrealistic. Even Robert Carlyle's tremendous performance at times fails to avoid the realm of caricature. That said, the actors did an excellent job with the screenplay given them and the film was still quite captivating in its intensity despite its historical inaccuracies.

Reading through the reviews, I am irked at the pathetic allegation that those who find this mini-series objectionable are the "PC crowd". Because, you know, Hitler was so scrupulously PC.

Carlyle is a very good actor, but here he is terrible. Hitler, the historical figure, was able to engineer a political system which perpetrated one of the worst genocides in history. His racist world view led directly to unimaginable catastrophe.

But this show's Hitler is a born Child of Satan, a snivelling and greedy coward surrounded by conveniently helpful Jews, muttering madly under his breath from the outset. Small children instinctively shy away from him. Little dogs are beaten by him for no good reason (in direct conflict with the real Hitler's rather creepy love of dogs like his Blondi). His rise to power seems to be explained by the hypnotic effect of his sinister moustache.

In short, this very fictional Hitler is so clearly off-the-charts insane from the get-go that he would not have come close to rising to the status of Chancellor. The title probably gives it away. This is a Rise of Evil, not a rise to evil. It sacrifices any sense of complexity or even reality in the name of yelling repeatedly at us that Hitler was a very very very bad man, even as a five year old.

Such a wasted opportunity, given the remarkable production values.

This mini-series tries to get inside Hitler's head and explain his motivations behind the atrocities that occurred during WWII. It fails miserably on all levels. First, it creates fictional characters that appear to be composite characters of real people without even acknowledging the effect that Hitler's inner circle had on the transformation of Germany during the 1920's. Goering, arguably the figure that helped Hitler to appeal to the former soldiers that formed his power based, is barely mentioned at all in the first part, neither are Himmler or Goebbels. This fact alone makes this mini-series worthless as a historical dramatization. I have read well-annotated history books about this time period and this mini-series appears to ignore how things actually happened and the actual people involved. If you really want to know about Hitler, read The Devils Deciples by Anthony Read or watch WWI in Color or Hitler's Bodyguard on the military channel. Don't waste your time with this one.