Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Richard Chatten Obviously deeply felt by the writer and director, immaculately designed on what appears a lavish budget by veteran Alexander Trauner (who appears early on playing the caretaker) and photographed in widescreen suffused in a nostalgiac glow by cameraman Bruno De Keyzer, its hard to believe there is still a large enough audience out there ignorant of the tragedy about to unfold; about which it doesn't really have anything terribly original to say. But Konradin's credulous willingness to give a demagogic snake-oil salesman like Hitler the benefit of the doubt - "He really impressed me. He is totally sincere. He has such... he has true passion. I think he can save our country. He is our only hope." - remains depressingly familiar today. And the leisurely pace at which it proceeds conveys something of the gradualness with which the appalling reality overwhelms its characters.But for the final, very abrupt, 'surprise' ending to work, the audience is assumed not to be able to recognise the ferrety face of Roland Freisler seen throughout, who ironically - as played by Roland Schäfer looking remarkably like John Malkovich in heavy eye-liner - comes across here as a relatively restrained version of the bellowing maniac preserved for posterity in newsreels. And would it really have taken over forty years and a trip all the way back to the very school were they were originally pupils for Henry to finally learn Konradin's fate?

aussiebrisguy This is a beautiful film that deals with a tragic story set during the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. Christien Anhalt (in the role of Hans Strauss) and Samuel West (in the role of Conradin von Lohenburg) are very well cast in the lead roles. Jason Robards (in the role of the adult Hans Strauss) is also very good. The period is also very well created. Hans Strauss is a teenage German Jew who befriends Conradin von Lohenburg at secondary school. The two become very close in spite of the increasing barriers that the rise of nazism and anti-semitism put between their friendship. The parents of Strauss manage to send him to the United States to live with relatives. Tragically though they themselves are unable to leave Germany and commit suicide as their form of escape. Years later the adult Hans Strauss returns to Germany as he has always wondered what happened to his friend Conradin von Lohenburg. Along the way he finds under the surface that anti-semitism still exists. Tragically rather than being reunited with his friend Conradin, he finds that Conradin has been executed due to his involvement in a plot to kill Hitler. I would recommend it to others. It is a wonderful film.

d-imdb Robards delivers a wonderful performance as an aging Jewish man who was sent away from Germany aged 16 in 1932 by his parents, for his own safety. He'd befriended a high-born non-Jewish boy his age prior to his departure. He returns to Germany to find out what happened to his friend. The ending is surprising and very deeply moving as a result of the significant, lengthy, and gratifying cinematic demonstration of their growing friendship as boys.

Hans-P Despite some traumatic sequences, this picture boasts careful, almost nostalgic location work in Stuttgart and the Schwarzwald. The conclusion may surprise you, mainly because the actions of the characters don't appear to foreshadow it at all. Nevertheless, it's a good piece of work, worthy of home-video release.