Directed By Todd Komernicki

Starring – Jonas Dassler, August Diehl, Moritz Bleibtreu

The Plot – As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Dassler) is swept into the epicenter of a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler. With his faith and fate at stake, Bonhoeffer must choose between upholding his moral convictions or risking it all to save millions of Jews from genocide. Will his shift from preaching peace to plotting murder alter the course of history or cost him everything?

Rated PG-13 for violent content, thematic elements and some smoking.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. | Official Trailer | Angel Studios

POSITIVES

For everything that ‘Bonhoeffer’ lacks as a compelling religious political thriller, it counteracts with stunning production values that elicit Angel Studios single most ambitious presentation to date, replicating early 20th century Germany with some unique measures that didn’t unintentionally reveal its budgetary cost, like most of their films. For starters, the cinematography here from John Mathieson is quite profound artistic, balancing the atmospheric influence of the Nazi’s terrifying grip on this community with a duality in color schemes that elicits the beauty and vibrancy of the landscapes before the hostile takeover, as well as the coldly damp weathering of it afterwards, and while it’s such a subtle touch that conveys a deeper psychological insight to the ways these characters viewed their bleakly hopeful outlooks, it goes a long way towards pitting the audience into the frame of mind that very few still alive can accurately interpret, leaving little doubts about the unshakeable impacts that terrorism can have on ones spirit, especially when it comes to paralyzing religious faith, which works as a means of escapism to the terrifying realities that Jewish citizens were facing every single day. On that front, and obviously for the fact that this is a movie from Angel Studios, it does have an unmistakable religious underlining in material that is tangible in the depths of these characters and their respective conflicts, but feels like a vital necessity to the depiction’s integrity towards showing the deepest grip that the Nazi’s had on these helpless victims, breaking them down to their barest necessity making up their daily routine. The castration itself doesn’t feel like a persecution complex so heavily emphasized by Komernicki, and instead uses it as the inspirational means that drives Bonhoeffer’s boldly daring mission to restitution, giving him strength and resiliency against such overwhelmingly humbling odds in ways that appraises a strong empathetic quality to the character, regardless of the obvious intention. Also adding to this benefit is the unflinching work of Jonas Dassler, who with some faithful costume, make-up and hairstyling for the production, transforms seamlessly into Dietrich Bonhoeffer in ways that other biopics could only dream of. While Dassler’s German accent is a bit choppy in terms of consistency, his evolution throughout daily charades of humility and heartbreak results in a palpable stage presence that is always commanding, despite edits and camera angles that occasionally deviate away from his character in focus, supplanting not only an air of intensity that feels like it bottles all of the rage and remorse of his dreaded disposition, but also a turn that requires more nuance out of his facial registries than I would expect in a movie like this, resulting in the attention and prominence of the occasion being unloaded to where it matters most. Lastly, I wish this movie was slightly better because it’s a film that definitely has its heart in the right place, primarily towards showcasing a post-credits screen text pertaining to contemporary antisemitism that sadly reveals that little has been learned from the days of Nazi murdering. In a strange turn of events, the film feels like it benefits as a product of its own ironic release timing, with the outcome of the recent United States presidential election summoning many fears for minorities and immigrants that mirror more than a few stern similarities to the terrorist group conjured in the film, and if audiences take anything away from the experience, I hope it’s that we’re doomed to repeat history if we refuse to ever learn from it.

NEGATIVES

Part of the fear with biopics is always that they ‘Hollywood’ up a true story that otherwise wouldn’t lend itself to cinematic enveloping, and while the same can definitely be said for ‘Bonhoeffer’, the negative impact comes almost entirely as a result of that artistic embellishing, resulting in an abundance to factual inaccuracy that practically makes Bonhoeffer feel like a superhero against his Nazi counterparts. Between unnatural lines that were so obviously crafted for marketing trailers, and a complete lack of vulnerability that eviscerates the humanity of the character’s design, the film feels like one that relies heavily on the speculation of who people want Bonhoeffer to be, instead of who he actually was, with an equally greater obscuring of the little uncomfortable truths about him that we do know to be confirmed that makes the film feel a bit manipulative in its rendering. Such an example pertains to a relationship that he as a 37-year-old had with an 18-year-old girl, where the latter is never even mentioned in passing anywhere throughout the film, almost as a result of the shame they have to show any kind of conflicting flaw to an otherwise perfect outlining, and it’s just one of a few interesting things about the man that is literally left on the cutting room floor of an over two hour movie that is quite literally named for him. Speaking of that run time, this is another example of a movie that feels every inch of an overly ambitious run time, especially with a lack of suspense and tension to these tragic sequences of physicality that should sporadically lift the film as valued pay-offs to the conflict. Part of the problem is definitely in the script’s inability to pay even a shred of timely development to any of the supporting characters, who weave in and out of the screen with the relevance of a deleted scene, but much more of the underutilizing sadly comes from Komernicki’s writing and direction, which constantly fumbles over itself with strange decisions to the execution that glared inferiority throughout the proceedings. This is especially the case with those few aforementioned action sequences, which between flat camera placement and premature editing mars the suspense and compelling drama factors of the movie in ways that underwhelm the tragedies of what the Jewish population in Germany were facing, all the while outlining the Nazi’s as these one-dimensional cartoons that aren’t a third of the menacingly unforgiving entity that they actually were. Exploitative isn’t exactly necessary or even possible in a PG-13 film, but I feel like Komernicki never dug deep enough to brandish a rivetingly uneasiness out of his audience, leaving so much of the potential from a film that in the concept of a plot against Nazi’s practically writes itself. As for Komernicki’s writing, I’ve covered a few of the mistakes he’s made from a conceptual circumstance, but the non-linear structure of two respective timelines in the life of Bonhoeffer is the most compromising, with abrupt cuts that would be impossible to decipher the distinct time period, if not for on-screen text that has to maintain frequency throughout the duration of the engagement. It’s a bit strange why they would even simultaneously render these respective timelines, as they never converge into anything poetic or profound between their destinations that would justify such a cause, but it’s so jumpy and jolting in transition during the movie’s first half that it feels impossible to remain invested to any particular character or pursued arc, convoluting the clearly concise with a story that begs to be more complex than it actually is.

OVERALL
‘Bonhoeffer’ is a commendable attempt at constructing a hero’s story towards cultural and religious resolution, but one that crumbles under the weight of its own ambitious decisions, in turn obscuring any insight into who he was, instead of just what he fought for. Despite the fumbling execution, the film is enhanced with visual artistry and a transforming performance from Jonas Dassler, that at least keeps things interesting, even when the stakes of the Nazi savagery never reach the admiring scope of Todd Komernicki’s speculative direction

My Grade: 5/10 or D