"13 Minutes" Review

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jeffhan373
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Joined: 27 Mar 2008, 01:46

"13 Minutes" Review

#1

Post by jeffhan373 » 24 Feb 2018, 16:32

This 2015 film is another recent find on Starz. I had never heard of it before. Director is Oliver Hirschbiegel, who made "Downfall."

It's the story of Georg Elser and his attempt to kill the Fuehrer in 1939. Movie opens with a superb recreation of Hitler giving his speech at the Buergerbraeukeller on November 8, 1939. The uniforms and props are spot on - Old Fighters with their Blood Orders, an introductory speech by Adolf Wagner, and a guy with the Blood Flag who actually looks like Jakob Grimminger. They wisely don't really show Hitler's face while he is speaking, and I wonder if they used the actual audio of his speech (or parts of it) - it sure sounds like him. There's only one oddity in the film: Arthur Nebe and Heinrich Mueller report to an SS-Obergruppenfuehrer, who would have been Heydrich, but the guy in the movie is un-named, is bald and has a Pour LeMerite. No idea why they threw in a fictional character

Most of the movie is Elser in custody, dealing with men like Mueller and Nebe. Lots of flashbacks to show how he decided to do what he did.

Elser worked in secret for a year on his bomb. The only thing that saved Hitler was his decision to cut the speech short (in the film, while he's speaking an orderly gives him a note which says, We can't fly tonight, which meant he had to use more time in transit than he otherwise would have). The Gestapo and RSHA seem to have grudgingly developed respect for Elser after finally accepting that he did this all on his own. But somebody - Hitler, probably - determined that he could not be allowed to survive the collapse, and he was shot in Dachau in April 1945.

Well worth seeing!

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