Hitler: The Rise of Evil

As an amateur historian of WW2/Nazi Germany, I couldn't wait for this to come out on DVD. I missed it when it was first on in 2003. I don't want to repeat what's already been said in the previous 8 pages of comments about the historical inaccuracies. A better job could've been done portraying the "charming" Hitler. I also had a small problem with some of the casting choices, not so much for their acting, but for their appearances. Peter Stormare doesn't look much like Rohm, why didn't they make Babson as Hess wear a wig? And my biggest complaint..so much has always been made of Hitler's striking blue eyes, why didn't they make Carlyle wear blue contacts? On the plus side, I thought the actors who played Goring and Drexler looked pretty good. Again, as long as people watching this understand that this is supposed to be entertainment 1st, history 2nd I don't think a lot of harm will be done.

The first surprise was Robert Carlyle in the lead role. his performance. and his science to escape from comfortable cliches. the second - the subject. after remarkable films about Hitler, another one could be only "an another". but the film works. as good introduction to the universe of a significant dictator. as portrait of a time. and as lesson about less recent history but about the essence of humankind. the historical accuracy and the effort of Robert Carlyle to give more a decent performance are the two admirable pillars of the film.

I have to admit that I'm commenting this production after seeing the first half only.But it's pretty clear to see where this is going. Now, the directing is not bad, the acting pretty good, but the script could be the work of a six year old kid (no offense to kids everywhere) who has read too many comic books. Adolf Hitler was not someone I would have wanted to get close to, espescially in the 30's and 40's, but by all means he was not the one-sided character we get to see in this film.Nobody is! "Hitler" is so badly written that the Fürher passes as a comic book bad guy. It's typical to make him an all-the-time raging nut (which he was!) but it doesn't get beneath the surface. The childhood of Hitler is so condensed (without mentioning the historical mistakes made!) that we lose sense of what really motivated the nazy leader. Duguay has to fight the material constantly in order to make everything hold together. And where we would expect a character study, even of a very very bad person (see "Raging bull", this one works!), we get something along the birth of the penguin in Batman. Now what is right for comic books isn't correct with historical figures, and certainly not with Adolf Hitler who changed the course of history in such an infamous way. More depth and less fancy camera work would have been needed to make this believable. Not sure I will watch part 2...

The best bits in this are the convincing recreations of the look of the Reichstag and other places associated with the rise of Hitler. It may involve CGI, but this is CGI that works (unlike in many much more expensive productions).

The script is ropey. Especially in the early stages the characters lecture each other with historical information they would all already know, for the benefit of viewers - a classic mistake. Later we have Hindenburg talking about defending democracy. Hindenburg was not a democrat. He believed it was his duty to serve the state and to uphold its constitution.

Many have noted that Robert Carlyle's ranting Hitler would never have come to power. He'd have been certified. Why the makers of this went for this one-dimensional treatment is a mystery.

The film suggests that the Nazis could provoke an election just by walking out of the Reichstag chamber - an over-simplification to say the least.

The scenes with the newspaper man do not ring true at all, and are an embarrassment.

It all gets very rushed once Hitler becomes chancellor. The key election after the Reichstag fire is omitted. There is no mention of the Communists and Social Democrats who were missing from the session which passed the enabling law in an atmosphere of fear. The Night of the Long Knives appears to come immediately after this, although it took place 15 months later. It's a hopeless jumble.

This is strictly for those who like their history delivered via TV movies. Addie's childhood is hashed out during the opening credits, and it's obvious from there that anything complicated about his personality is going to be overshadowed in favor of a sophomoric portrait that would be better titled: Hitler, Son of Satan. A tepid TV costume drama about everyone's favorite villain. Carlyle is mediocre in it.