SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

sddavis63 There's a lot about this movie to like. The story is compelling enough, and the acting by Christopher Plummer is superb. He plays Zev, a Holocaust survivor whose wife has just died. Zev is suffering from dementia and has trouble with short term memory - and can't even remember from day to day that his wife is no longer with him. As he sits shiva for his wife, Max - his friend from the nursing home (played by Martin Landau) - gives him a letter explaining to him that he has to search out the man responsible for their family's murders (because Max tells him they were both prisoners at Auschwitz.) The rest of the movie shows us Zev's journey all around North America trying to find the man. They know his name, they know that there are four possibilities. And Zev's mission is to take revenge.In many ways I found this a sad movie, watching Zev struggling with his failing memories and sent on this ridiculous cross-continent quest. Sadness was actually the emotion that permeated the whole thing for me. And there were parts of the story that didn't make a lot of sense. Many people take sympathy on Zev and seem to understand that he's confused - but no one bothers contacting the authorities to tell them that there's a confused and elderly man who looks like he needs help? And there was a single line in the movie that made me chuckle. At one point Zev's son, talking on the phone to someone, says that his dad's been missing for a week. A week? He's taken a train trip from New York to Cleveland. Then he has to travel to Canada, making a bus trip all the way to Hearst, Ontario - a long way north (about 1000 km north of Toronto). Then he travels by bus all the way from Hearst to Idaho, then to Reno, then to Lake Tahoe. But he's only been missing a week? That stretches the imagination.The ending (which I won't get into) comes as a shocker and the sheer unexpectedness of it makes the movie memorable. I certainly wasn't expecting it. And it's worth watching for Plummer's fantastic performance. But, to be perfectly honest, it's not a great movie - although I will confess that my wife thought more highly of it than I did. (5/10)

deannapoljan Thought this was excellent. Seeing Plummer and Landau working together is great, and while it was difficult to watch Dean Norris in such a role (loved him in Breaking Bad), this was extremely entertaining. I love films with a twist, and didn't see it coming. Very good.

gwmbkm Both Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau are excellent actors (ML in the past tense since he passed away in the summer of 2017). It is amazing when men - particularly men of their age - can deliver such riveting performances. The story is spellbinding and the ending is very much a surprise. But it is the acting of the two gentlemen Plummer and Landau that should recommend this film to anyone who enjoys solid acting and complete immersion in their characters. A shout out also to Dean Norris for his 15 minutes or so of screen time. Very well acted.Anyone who has a smattering of knowledge of the Nazi concentration camps should appreciate this movie. And even those who don't should appreciate it for its excellent acting.

ravitchn Unless there is real evidence that some Nazis sought to escape their fate by posing as Jews who had been in concentration camps -- and I know of no such evidence -- this movie could easily be regarded as a whitewash of the Nazis. If you cannot believe people who say they are victims of the Nazis, can you believe anything about the Holocaust? I think not.Granted the movie is entertaining and the ending surprising, but a movie about these events which are so powerfully painful for so many which can be interpreted as a putdown of Holocaust remembrances and Jewish and others' sufferings cannot be viewed merely as entertainment or an opportunity for irony or some other theatrical mode. This movie is truly a disgrace. Yes, there are memories of the Holocaust which are inaccurate, others which are false intentionally, others which can be excused because of suffering and pain. But anything which seeks and succeeds in lying about the truth cannot be accepted.