The Man with the Iron Heart (2017)

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Too simple plot that is told very slowly. One of the most boring movie I have ever watched

I was looking forward to this movie, having already seen both Anthropoid and (a long time ago) Operation Daybreak and with the knowledge that a contemporary of mine from my old university college had co-written the script. However, this movie didn't really know what it wanted to be: a study of the motivations that made Reinhard Heydrich the monster he was?; an account of the plotting and execution of his assassination?; or his role in masterminding the Final Solution?It's a shame because the latter two things have already been well covered in movies and TV plays. Operation Daybreak and Anthropoid are essentially the same movie, although Anthropoid's casting of Cillian Murphy was a mistake because he is so distractingly good looking (I'd shag him and I'm not even gay!) that you are sitting there thinking "This really hot guy is supposed to be on an undercover mission? Maybe in a Bond movie!" So we already know enough about the daring mission and the reprisals. And then there was a very good account of the process of the Wannsee Conference that was done for the telly (with Kenneth Branagh playing Heydrich this time); this show prompted me to visit Haus am Wannsee on my last visit to Berlin, which was a very moving experience for me.But the real opportunity here was to really get under Heydrich's skin and find out what made him tick. Some of what made him tick was alluded to in the first part of the movie but because of the restrictions of the two-hour length and the decision to, effectively, make this two movies in one we don't really get many answers. OK, we kind of get his wife sort of got him involved in the Nazi thing, but how did he get to be so powerful? I'm not buying that it was just because he could see how to run a chicken farm better than Himmler. More important, how did he become so brutal and unfeeling? These questions aren't really answered.So, it's a missed opportunity because it tries to cover too much in too little time. Maybe the director and writers ought to have taken a look at the TV miniseries about Albert Speer from the early 1980s that starred Rutger Hauer. There was another opportunist (although, rather strangely, one whom history seems to have been kinder to even though he was responsible for working people to death in munitions factories) and you get some idea why he became so attracted to Hitler, how he was able to turn a blind eye given his ambition and how he was clever enough to avoid getting the hanging after the war he so obviously deserved.For me, the most interesting thing about the Nazi era isn't the crazy mofos like Hitler, Himmler and the rest, but the enablers: the opportunists who are more concerned with personal ambition and who see their chances and take them, even if it means a lot of suffering for others. I find them interesting because there are more of these types around than perhaps we'd like to admit! And my view is that Heydrich was really one of these: in it for himself rather than some grand purpose!

This film does have its moments, lots of sex right from the beginning. There is also a harrowing and heart touching scene with the little boy watching his father being tortured by the SS in the Gestapo HQ in Prague. But this was filmed I believe in Hungary and not Prague, so there are technical inaccuracies. 1) The bombs manufactured by Kubis and Gabcik were totally incorrect. Anthropoid got it right 2) The shooting scene with the Mercedes was all wrong. It was supposed to be on a bend, alongside two passing trams. It was actually in a quiet area, not alongside a bustling market place and probably originally chosen for that fact. Although the original site in Liben between Zenklova and V Holesovickach has all changed out of recognition, Anthrapoid found a lot better site in Prague which was nearly identical to the original site in the Liben district in Prague. They used the junction of Chotkova and Badeniho which was ideal. 3) The outside of the Gestapo building was incorrect, the original one is still in Prague and could have been used. Again Anthrapoid correct. 3) The layout of the crypt in St Cyril and St Methodius cathedral was also wrong, and also the outside shots of this cathedral which were horrendous. Again technically Anthropoid or Operation Daybreak were a lot better than this film, but as a biography of Reinhard Heydrich it was OK I liked Himmler especially, and the things he said could really be believed. Spine tinglingly shocking.

"We made a monster, a devil out of Hitler. Therefore we couldn't disavow it after the war. After all, we mobilized the masses against the devil himself. So we were forced to play our part in this diabolic scenario after the war. In no way we could have pointed out to our people that the war only was an economic preventive measure." -- US foreign minister James Baker (1992)