Dani Levy's film is one of the first German films approaching the figure of Adolf Hitler and the last months of his reign in a comic register. The memory of Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece immediately comes to mind, as in both films we deal with one single simple man having the chance to penetrate into the higher circles of the dictatorship, and in both films Hitler's sinister character is dealt with in a furiously comic manner.
Levy's tentative is not very successful. The director does not seem to have made his mind about the register of approaching the historical facts, he is mixing the gross character satire with the historical melodrama. Some of the comical gags are too direct and too expected, and it falls to the melodramatic counterpoint of the story to counterpoint the overall tone. Here the big chance of the film is to have Ulrich Mühe distributed in his last important role, of the Jewish director and professor of acting who is charged no less but to saving the Third Reich by coaching Hitler in regaining his self-assurance and giving one of his historical speeches that could revive the faith of the German people and turn back the destiny of the war. While Hitler is pathetically portrayed as a madman in self-delusion and nervous breakdown, Ulrich Mühe's Prof. Adolf Israel Grünbaum is almost realistic, superb in the humanity of the humble man who is saving his own humanity and the whole humanity in his sacrifice. If it was only for this last opportunity to see this great German actor, 'Mein Fuhrer' is worth seeing.
Levy's tentative is not very successful. The director does not seem to have made his mind about the register of approaching the historical facts, he is mixing the gross character satire with the historical melodrama. Some of the comical gags are too direct and too expected, and it falls to the melodramatic counterpoint of the story to counterpoint the overall tone. Here the big chance of the film is to have Ulrich Mühe distributed in his last important role, of the Jewish director and professor of acting who is charged no less but to saving the Third Reich by coaching Hitler in regaining his self-assurance and giving one of his historical speeches that could revive the faith of the German people and turn back the destiny of the war. While Hitler is pathetically portrayed as a madman in self-delusion and nervous breakdown, Ulrich Mühe's Prof. Adolf Israel Grünbaum is almost realistic, superb in the humanity of the humble man who is saving his own humanity and the whole humanity in his sacrifice. If it was only for this last opportunity to see this great German actor, 'Mein Fuhrer' is worth seeing.