It's 1918 Munich. The German army had suffered devastating losses and the country is struggling. Max Rothman (John Cusack) lost his arm in the war. He is a successful Jewish art dealer and Liselore von Peltz (Leelee Sobieski) is his mistress. Corporal Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor) returns and tries to get Max to sell his work despite his closely held belief. He connects with other anti-Semites from the returning army.

This is a reimagining of a turning point in world history. It takes a little while to feel comfortable with the premise. My one big problem is Hitler's art. It is precise and rather heartless in real life. I don't know much about his drawings during the war but I doubt it would be dead bodies in the field. It's actually a great premise to open up his character. Imagine if he presents his architectural drawings of war ruins to Max who insists that he paints the soldiers. He would confront the ugliness and the humanity of the world. In a way, his art would help him confront his own world views. The movie proposes that Max forces him to dig deep and that solidifies his vision. I don't mind that but I rather have his art start at a different place. Also, Hitler has a bit too much internal conflict. It seems unHitlerlike. Overall, I like the reimagining premise but in the end, Hitler is an awfully hard man to like. This is hard to like.

Well it's easy enough to make out the general idea behind this movie. Every German soldier returns from World War I (that's the one that started in 1914 and ended in 1918, kids. PS: We won.) embittered and humiliated. When you're so distressed there are a couple of things you can do about it. This movie narrows the choices down to two -- politics and art. (Freud called this "sublimation." That'll be fifteen cents.)

Hitler, Noah Taylor, has got his head and other body parts caught in a vice caused by these two more or less conflicting tendencies. He's not especially interested in politics, although he's cajoled by the most Aryan-looking ex-Army captain imaginable. He IS interested in art, but alas his muse eludes him. He forms a quasi-friendship with Max Rothman, the nationalized Jew who has lost an arm in the trenches and has returned home to a warm family and a warm mistress and enough resources to start an art market, featuring folks like Ernst and Klimt and Grosz. It's a little hard to come by Hitler's paintings in the real world. I think I saw a copy of one, once, and it wasn't that bad. The two or three examples we glimpse in this film are what Rothman calls "futuristic kitsch." There's, for instance, a dog's head, a kind of retriever it looks like, that resembles something that ought to be divided into geometric patches with numbers inside them, representing the number of the paint you use to fill up the patch. There's an eagle's head too, and a couple of ugly buildings and sketches of uniform details and a nascent Hackenkreutz. (Come to think of it, I'm not so sure it's that much worse than the cubistic puzzles that Rothman seems so fond of.) Hitler -- had Rothman just concentrated on his commercial possibilities instead of urging him to "let himself go" -- might have succeeded as an artist. Look at What's His Name -- Hugg's? -- tigers. Or Leroy Nieman. Or those tempera paintings of sailing ships found on the walls of thousands of better motels.

John Cusack has an easy role, the nice easy-going generous somewhat condescending artistic type. He deeply regrets the loss of his arm because he himself wanted to be a painter, not a merchant. But he has the strength, or let's say the resources, not to let his loss overwhelm him. The resources include a loving, understanding, and sophisticated wife played by Molly Parker. She's enough to make anybody forget about an arm. What a magnetic actress -- not exactly beautiful, her face is a bit long, but she sparkles with intelligence and something more, that suggests an understanding of things not immediately apparent in the film we're watching.

She can dance too. The toughest role is Noah Taylor's as Hitler and he's superb. First of all, he looks the part, small and unprepossessing, tousled and scowling. (He never laughs or smiles and seems to have no sense of humor.) Second, his body language would be hard to improve upon. He seems to always have his arms folded awkwardly across his stomach as if to keep the rest of the world at a distance. He doesn't smoke, drink, or eat meat. (God, he's a modern!) And he doesn't let women touch him. Third, his expressions are hard at work for him. He glares when he looks at something.

And his breakdown when faced with a canvas that is blank except for one tiny black spot he's put on it -- representing his deeper self -- is pitiful and, we sense, tragic in the end, not only for him but for the world. Maybe the most pathetic scene in the movie is in the art gallery when Rothman tries to explain to him that the world is changing and demands new myths, new approaches to painting, new everythings. And Hitler gloomily points out that he came back from the war with nothing -- none of Rothman's advantages -- except for a belief in traditional values and a veneration of Teutonic history, and now Rothman is trying to take that away from him. Hitler was right about one thing, when he shouts that he is the avant guard, that politics is the new art. He was more right than he could have imagined.

The last shot is devastatingly ironic. On one side of a wall, Rothman lies bleeding and dying from a beating given to him by a horde of goons just stirred up by one of Hitler's speeches, while on the other side of the wall Hitler marches along, head down, his portfolio under his arm, enraged that Rothman didn't show up for the appointment that was to promote Hitler's art.

The dialogue is mostly of the "newly translated" kind. "One doesn't like to think of such things." A couple of anachronisms creep in. "Newness does it for me." But, that aside, this is a well-done movie, worth watching, brimming with irony and a couple of very good performances.

An interesting film studying the depiction of a friendship between an avant-garde art dealer named Rothman and his pupil , Adolf Hitler , a corporal veteran war . The picture has an attractive premise and is partially based on historical deeds , though many of them are imaginary . At the close of the First World War, Germany enters into the new Weimar Republic following the collapse of the Kaiser's Imperial Reich. In 1918 , Hitler (Noah Taylor) is an ambitious but starving young ; the embittered war veteran lives in Munich and wandering across the streets . Adolf is befriended by Max Rothman (John Cusack , to help get this controversial movie financed, he took no salary for acting in the lead role) , a Jewish art dealer and fellow veteran war who has just opened his own modernism gallery . Max , who lost an arm during World War , is happily married (to Molly Parker) but also has a lover (Leelee Sobieski) . Hitler's paintings are kitsch but Max encourages him anyway and shrugs of his rantings , which draw more attention from fellow Army officer Mayr (Ulrich Thomsen) . Hitler starts studying the art of public speaking and Mayr believes Hitler would make a good political spokesman, the latter was proved right .

Rothman well played by John Cusack is a fictional role ; however , Mayr perfectly performed by Ulrich Thomsen is not . Of course Adolf Hitler character is well described , being rightly interpreted by Noah Taylor , though sometimes overacting ; in fact , Hitler was an actual failure painter , who unfortunately failed in this activity and dedicated to politics . The film is pretty good though flawed , overlong and a little boring , including excessive dialog and speeches . The motion picture was professionally written and directed by Menno Meyjes . Writer/director reports that before the script was written, Steven Spielberg's Amblin company was interested in the project ; but Spielberg told Meyjes he couldn't bring himself to help make a movie he thought would dishonor Holocaust survivors. Nevertheless, he considered the script an excellent one and encouraged the director to push for its realization, but without Amblin.

The picture based on some true facts , these are the followings : At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was a resident of Munich and volunteered to serve in the Bavarian Army as an Austrian citizen. Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 , he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium, spending nearly half his time well behind the front lines.He was present at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was wounded at the Somme.During his service at the headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort, and his ideological development began to firmly take shape. He described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery. The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in 1918 . The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must relinquish several of its territories and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on the country. Many Germans perceived the treaty which declared Germany responsible for the war as a humiliation.The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political condit ions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gains .