Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

tomsview Kurt Vonnegut claimed that the film of "Mother Night" captured the spirit of his book so well that he could never think of Howard Campbell Jnr without visualising Nick Nolte in the part.Nick Nolte seems to get better with age. He is in nearly every scene of this film and sustains his character through the passage of more than thirty years.The story begins in 1960 with Howard Campbell Jnr awaiting trial in an Israeli prison for anti-Jewish broadcasts he made during the war. The Israeli authorities order him to write his memoirs and through narration and flashback his story is revealed.An American who grew up in pre-war Germany, Howard Campbell Jnr is a successful playwright when the Nazis come to power. Married to a leading German actress played by Sheryl Lee, he ignores the excesses of the Nazis by absorbing himself in work and love for his wife. Just before America enters the war, an agent, Frank Wirtanen played by John Goodman, convinces him to ingratiate himself with the Nazis in order to relay coded information to the Allies via radio broadcasts even though he will be regarded as a traitor by America and the truth will never be revealed.As cover for his espionage work, Campbell's broadcasts are vitriolic in their denunciation of the Jews and he becomes a hated figure among the Allies. At war's end, he is given a false identity and disappears back into American society. The story takes a number of unpredictable turns and ends with Campbell burnt out and disillusioned by a life over which he has had little control. He sums up his life with the philosophy that runs through the film, "You must be careful what you pretend to be, because in the end you are what you pretend to be".In his guise as a Nazi collaborator, Campbell's tirades against the Jews have the power to shock even in the context of this movie. Not unexpectedly this was where a few critics felt the movie stepped over the line of acceptability. To dismiss "Mother Night" in this way is to miss its power as a cautionary tale that does not insult the audience by delivering easy answers or a predicable plot.The film comes close to falling apart in the New York scenes featuring the neo-Nazis. Treated as caricatures, they almost capsize the story. However if the filmmakers had attempted a more serious approach with this material, apart from missing the Vonnegut touch, they may have produced a work of such oppressive gloom that the ironic tone that underpins the movie would have been lost.One scene in "Mother Night" stays in the memory. Crushed by the forces that have buffeted his life, Howard Campbell Jnr stops walking and remains motionless for hours in a crowded New York street, because, as he says, "There did not seem to be any direction in which I needed to go".Unique and challenging, "Mother Night" leaves an indelible impression, and Nick Nolte's performance is simply unforgettable.

HiPalmetto I am a huge fan of Vonnegut's work and I'm very fond of this movie, but I wouldn't say that this is a film of the "Mother Night" that I read. When people say that Vonnegut is unfilmable, two things come to my mind. One is that many of his themes are very near the knuckle or even taboo, despite the accusation sometimes used against him that he chooses relatively "easy" targets for his satire. This means less every day that passes as far as filmability is concerned. Directors these days appear to revel in breaking taboos and I have high hopes for the version of "Bluebeard" now in production. Amazing to think that an innocent piece like Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" would probably have been the equivalent of "R" rated if filmed when it was published back in the 50s, for its violence, language and sexual and thematic content, though it's a tragedy that nobody's come up yet with a filmable script for it. And in the present economic climate, I also hope some director out there is looking closely at "Jailbird", "Galapagos" and "Hocus Pocus".The other thing is his narrative style, heaping irony upon irony upon irony but still making it hilariously funny. It seems impossible to objectify, and that appears to be the biggest obstacle to making great films of his great novels, because the little authorial comments that colour our response as readers are just not possible in movies without resorting to too often clumsy techniques like "talkovers". Vonnegut suggested that there was a character missing from filmed versions of his work, himself as author/narrator. To its credit, "Breakfast of Champions" (the movie) tried to keep the comedy and came a bit of a cropper for its pains. As did another turkey made from a Vonnegut novel, "Slapstick" in an even more spectacular way.Still, there's nothing wrong with a director giving us his subjective interpretation of Vonnegut, and "Mother Night" is an excellent example of how, as another reviewer put it, a good director can add a visual poetry to a source like this. But so much of the humour is lost that though it's the same plot, it's not really from the same novel I read. If it had been, I'd probably have been rolling in the aisles laughing a few times watching it. For a reader of the novel, I think a chuckle even at the end is forgivable. The end of the film, however, is truly poignant, and I think one of the film's successes is that it can genuinely leave you feeling that you've watched someone walk a razor's edge between good and evil, and the jury is still out.Standing alone and of itself it's well worth a look. Technically there are some minor but glaring errors, notably in continuity, and it too often looks drab and theatrical, but most of the time it hits an acceptable note and occasionally shows considerable imagination and resourcefulness. The acting in general is of a high order, even if maybe the dialogue is by today's standards a little stilted.It survives quite well watching back to back with "Slaughterhouse-5", and there is actually quite a bit more "good" filmed Vonnegut out there, mostly versions of his short stories - "Harrison Bergeron", "Who Am I This Time?" and some other things like, of course, the misfiring filmed version of his very funny but disposable play, "Happy Birthday Wanda June". Also there was an interesting piece , if it still exists, done in the 70s called "Between Time And Timbuktu" which Vonnegut apparently didn't like much, although he was involved in its production, because he felt it misinterpreted him in its generality. He said it reminded him of the bizarre surgical experiments performed in the HG Wells tale "The Island of Dr. Moreau", but it did for many people serve as an excellent introduction to his work.But if the films don't make you want to go to the superior source material, they're not doing their job.As the man said, more or less, the big show is inside your head.

jcanettis There are numerous films relating to WW2, but Mother Night is quite distinctive among them: In this film, we are introduced to Howard Campbell (Nolte), an American living in Berlin and married to a German, Helga Noth (Lee), who decides to accept the role of a spy: More specifically, a CIA agent Major Wirtanen (Goodman) recruits Campbell who becomes a Nazi propagandist in order to enter the highest echelons of the Hitler regime. However, the deal is that the US Government will never acknowledge Campbell's role in the war for national security reasons, and so Campbell becomes a hated figure across the US. After the war, he tries to conceal his identity, but the past comes back and haunts him. His only "friend" is Wirtanen, but even he cannot do much for the avalanche of events that fall upon poor Campbell...The story is deeply touching, as we watch the tragedy of Campbell who although a great patriot, is treated by disdain by everybody who surrounds him. Not only that, but he also gradually realizes that even the persons who are most close to him, have many secrets of their own. Vonnegut provides us with a moving atmosphere, with Campbell's despair building up and almost choking the viewer.Nolte plays the role of his life, in my opinion; he is even better than in "Affliction", although in both roles he plays tragic figures who are destined to self-destruction. Sheryl Lee is also excellent, and the same can be said for the whole cast in general.I haven't read the book, so I cannot appraise how the film compares to it. In any case, this is something of no importance here: My critique is upon the film per se, and the film wholeheartedly deserves a 9/10.

manuel-pestalozzi I am amazed at the amount of praise that is heaped on this movie by other commentators. To me it was rather a disappointment, especially the combination of historical facts, fantasy and the main character's internal turmoil does not work at all (in Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse Five and even in George Roy Hill's adaptation for the screen it does). Credibility is often overstretched. Too many questions are left open. Did I miss some central points? Or did I fail to spot the lines that supposedly connect the dots? A boy called Campbell, Jr., grows up in upstate New York. At home his father has many technical trade papers and one book. It has photographs of heaps of dead bodies in it. The boy leafs through the book, his dad doesn't like his doing that. What should this tell me? The family moves away from upstate New York to Berlin. BANG. It is 1938, the boy is a married man in Berlin and a theater playwright. What kind of plays does he write? In what language? Is he successful? His wife is an actress and looks glamorous. The parents move back to the USA and invite their son to do the same. He does not. Why? Because having grown up in Germany he feels more German than American? Because he is successful? Because his wife is? Because he likes his life there? Because he likes the Nazis? Because he is just plain lazy and doesn't like change? Don't ask me.Possibly, the man just does not care, is not interested in politics, is a kind of an existentialist. He states that he is deeply in love with his wife. He speaks of his Republic of Two (meaning he and his wife). There is little to no evidence proving his love for his wife in the movie, it much more seems a Republic of One.On the request of an American agent Campbell, Jr., agrees to broadcast anti Semitic Nazi hate propaganda to American listeners as a device for transmitting encrypted messages to American authorities who read between the lines. The crucial meeting with the agent on a Berlin park bench is short, unexciting and anti climactic, the decision to play along comes pretty easily with no explanation, the rise up to broadcaster seems to be uneventful and apparently fast.So now we have Campbell, Jr., presenting himself over the air as the Last Free American. The scheme for transmitting secret messages is fairly realistic and exciting - although one wonders what happened when Campbell, Jr., really and honestly had to cough, hiccup etc. (must have scrambled the messages terribly). Anyway, the Nazis lose, the wife dies (touring in the Crimean for German troops - I never heard such tours really happened on German front lines in WW II), Campbell, Jr., says he goes to the Russian front but does not go, is captured by an American soldier who recognizes his mug (how come?), is dragged to a sight-seeing tour in Auschwitz, is then released and resettled with the help of the Crucial Agent somewhere in the City of New York.AND THIS IS WHERE THE STORY REALLY STARTS BANG. From now on it is like a short story by Paul Auster. It is 1961, Campbell, Jr., lives in New York tenement as a has-been and mourns the loss of his wife. Nobody really cares - or do they? Yes, somehow they do, and his neighbors offer some sort of distraction. Auschwitz survivors. A painter. Some American supremacists „discover" him and want him to be their figurehead. They even find his presumed dead wife for him, or is she his wife? Anyway, in the end Campbell, Jr., calls in at the Israeli consulate, and they obligingly give him the Big War Criminal treatment, placing him in the cell adjacent to Adolf Eichmann's. He writes his life story and, once this task finished, hangs himself on the typewriter's ribbons without getting sooty the least bit.While I can see that there must be an issue of guilt and of loss, I just had the impression that the main character is a person who at all times is pretty indifferent to everything and hardly capable of love for anyone. So I found it difficult to sympathize for this looser who mourns his loss. Amazingly, many reviewers focus on his status as a potential war hero, having put his reputation at stake for playing the Last Free American. I assume according to them this took a lot of courage. As a matter of fact, however, the movie suggests that by accepting the assignment Campbell created for himself a win-win situation, as he would have been politically on the safe side no matter who had won the war. The danger of his being uncovered never comes up during the first part of the story.One might argue, that the whole story is a dreamlike fantasy and that nobody should bother with historical accuracy or a logical development of the story which explains everything. But even then it fails to make a point, primarily, I suspect, because the love affair in the Republic of Two falls completely flat. This is a pity, especially if you consider that the wife was played by Sheryl Lee, a talented, versatile and sensuous actress. She has much too little screen time and is forced to use a ridiculous German accent. Another somehow neglected aspect are the different texts (confession, broadcast and hidden messages), but I guess this is largely unfilmable. Maybe I should give the book a chance.