Metacritic reviews

Walking With the Enemy is a powerful piece of filmmaking that examines history and heroism with big-screen artistry, imagination and thrills.

Walking with the Enemy may not be another “Schindler’s List” (Ben Kingsley has a small but important role as Hungary’s deposed regent) but it’s handsomely photographed (A-list vet Dean Cundey) in Romania and a compelling addition to the Shoah canon.

After Walking with the Enemy, two hours and four minutes of torture, rape and mass shootings, you’ll feel you’ve been tested, too.

Some of that emotion inevitably makes its way into our perception of the film, which elevates it somewhat, but only to the level of mediocrity.

Does not sink to the bathos of Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning film (“Life Is Beautiful”), but it does reduce a period of irredeemable horror to the heroics of a single person.

As earnest and heartfelt as a movie can be, Walking With the Enemy is, unfortunately, a plodding and clunky drama that never misses an opportunity to embrace a cliché.

A simple retelling of these stories would have been more dramatic, more effective and more powerful.

As with many other WWII films, it takes genuinely stirring source material -- a young Hungarian man poses as a Nazi to find his dislocated family -- and reduces it to its most shopworn components.

In the spaces between the hackneyed dialogue, ham-handed score, and poor acting, Walking With The Enemy eventually wins its sole victory: a desire to look the story up on Wikipedia later that day. That may be a small triumph, but it’s hardly the mark of fine cinema.

While a noble, inspiring story, the filmmaking is blunt rather than intelligent.