The Eichmann Show (2015 TV Movie) User Reviews (30)

Powerful Yet Slightly Problematic Historical Drama

[l_rawjalaurence · 6/10 · 7 December 2015]

What to make of THE EICHMANN SHOW? It is necessary to detach fiction from fact. Paul Andrew Williams's production includes large slices of archive footage of the trial, showing the impassive features of Adolf Eichmann as he listened to the testimonies of several witnesses (victims?) of the atrocities he condoned. There are also newsreel records of the concentration camps and their victims, who if they were not already piled up into heaps of dead naked bodies, were left emaciated, mere shadows of what was once live humanity. These sequences are difficult to stomach, even at seventy years' remove; we still wonder how people could behave in such a bestial manner.

The dramatized parts are less effective, to be honest. The action is structured around a conflict between television producer Milton Fruchtman (Martin Freeman) and his director Leo Hurwitz (Anthony LaPaglia). Fruchtman has rescued Hurwitz from a ten-year exile on the Un-American Activities Committee blacklist, but finds him difficult to work with, as Hurwitz seems obsessed with focusing his cameras on Eichmann's face, to the detriment of other events during the lengthy trial. At one point Hurwitz misses a dramatic moment when one witness faints as he tries to recall his harrowing experiences in the death camps. Yet sometimes the conflict between producer and director distracts our attention away from the events at hand, almost as if director Williams were trying in some way to soften the dramatic impact of his piece. Matters are not helped by the regular use of reaction shots on Freeman's and LaPaglia's faces as they respond to one another.

On the other hand Williams does question Fruchtman's morality, as he seems more obsessed with maintaining global ratings rather than broadcasting the material. We are into areas explored in Sidney Lumet's NETWORK (1976) here: are television companies really undertaking public service responsibilities, or are they simply trying to render all events as entertainment to attract high viewing figures? Hurwitz understands the significance of what he directs, but Fruchtman appears not to.

THE EICHMANN SHOW is certainly a powerful piece that needs to be watched, but perhaps the reconstructed material could have been more slickly handled.

The Eichmann Show

[Sausage1 · 8/10 · 20 January 2015]

This is a brilliant BBC production about the trial of Otto Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who escaped to Argentina after the Second World War, and who was responsible for facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II.

The film is superbly cast, and tells the story from the perspective of the production crew responsible for televising the trial in Jerusalem in 1961. We get to see the logistics involved in bringing the trial to TV screens around the world, and the problems the production team face along the way.

Of course the biggest story in a production like this is the horror of the holocaust, and how a man can be responsible for such evil. The Eichmann Show is yet another reminder of this horror, and is well worth a couple of hours of anyones time.

8/10

Humbling

[chalaowens · 8/10 · 20 August 2019]

I have watched this several times, each viewing leaves me silent and reflective. Having just finished another viewing and comparing it to today's American political climate, I wonder how much we really learned. Can we take these lessons and reteach them today, or has history become too irrelevant in this world of greed?

Too bad that the rest of the story fell flat

[Seraphion · 6/10 · 6 May 2015]

In the 1960s the Israeli intelligence service tracked down and captured the former number one Nazi SS officer Adolph Eichmann from his hiding in Argentina. He was responsible for the 'final solution' on the Jewish question, that is the systematic killings of Jews. In Jerusalem the Israeli government is holding a trial for Eichmann and they intend to televise the whole process. They had contracted New York based producer Milton Fruchtman to produce the TV program. Milton then hired Leo Hurwitz, a renowned documentary movie director to direct the show. Their first obstacle to face is the judges are having objections to the presence of cameras in the room, which they deem intimidating. So the production team staged the court room's walls with holes to accommodate the cameras. As the trial begins Leo immediately dances through the camera positions and zooms and pans and getting the additional dramatic effects the program needed.

But Milton gets frustrated over the fact that they are losing audience over other world politics issues such as the Cuban missile crisis and Russia's Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. The audience soon returns as the trial enters the witness testimonies, which stories touched the world deeply. Meanwhile Leo gets more and more obsessed in finding any little hint of humanity left within Eichmann, making him to focus the cameras on Eichmann frequently, to Milton's frustration. Milton barely escapes an assassination attempt and warns the team about their own personal safety. At last comes the moment in the trial where they show Eichmann the footage of the actual things happened in the concentration camps, to which Eichmann didn't flinch. Leo then gives up trying to proof his point about Eichmann as Eichmann is then sentenced to death.

The story proves to be quite a hard to judge in overall. As the movie focuses most on the production team, it has distanced itself from the Eichmann character entirely that Adolf Eichmann only existed as the background for this movie. So it's safe to say that the movie is not like what we would find in 1961's Judgment in Nuremberg. In fact in this movie there's no real interaction between Eichmann and the main characters at all.

Yet if we see it from the production team's perspective, the movie had done it's obligations in retelling all the things that matter about the trial's video production. But I personally feel that beside that main focus on the trial, the rest of the story felt pretty much flat. This is quite lame because the movie actually brought up a few potential sub stories, such as the ones with Milton and Leo's families, the ones about Yaakov, and the ones about Mrs. Landau.

Those being said, I have to say also that the movie reached it's aim in revisiting memories about the Holocaust by the use of the archival footage, not just the footage of the concentration camps, but also the footage of the actual witnesses and of Eichmann himself in the court room in the trial process. The movie's use of reenactments at times on the Eichmann side is to a good purpose. But I think that it's quite unwise to mingle those reenactments with the actual Eichmann archival footage.

The acting overall is quite a decent job in my view. Martin Freeman managed to retain his usual character of looking carefree and able to hide even threats to him in order to maintain his team's working spirit. He was also successful in projecting the wider spectrum of Milton Fruchtman's supposedly frustrated condition. Anthony LaPaglia also did well enough in portraying the cool handed and professional director. The extra mission about finding any hint of Eichmann's humanity is also depicted quite nicely by LaPaglia, even to the confrontations with Fruchtman.

My say is that The Eichmann Show (2015) deserves a 6 out of 10 score. I would've scored it more if only the rest of the story didn't feel so flat. A recommendation is only for those of you who really like history. Despite being able to be emotional at times, the movie is more informational than it is entertaining.

Powerful theme , not super well executed

[srgymrat33 · 7/10 · 12 December 2020]

The trial and story here it in itself incredibly compelling and tragic. The real film they used within the movie was so well done and brought an element that reenactment never could .

The focus of the film was threefold. First - the atrocities of the holocaust, second the power of media and third weather or not man can inherently be evil.

The first theme is well accomplished and presented in a respectful way . The idea that surviving Jews had been left marginalized and underrepresented for so long was a fantastic undercurrent.

The power of media is also presented well but might be slightly more hidden . This was really the justification for this particular focus , if you know this going in and look for it , you find it and realize there is so much power in what was done to show and document this trial in the way it was .

The third theme, although important is not presented as clearly or as well and I think gets in the way at times of the second theme . The dialogue when Leo is thinking of leaving helps point out the overarching goal of the film , but his obsession with "breaking " Eichmann on a personal level sometimes gets in the way.

Important film, great premise and solid acting . Not done as well as it could have been but absolutely worth the time .

The shock of how ordinary this monster looked.

[andy-ferrar · 7/10 · 28 January 2021]

One of my earliest memories is the Eichmann trial. Watching the film I now realise that it started on my sixth birthday. We talked about it in the playground built up an image of a monster. In London at the time we were surrounded by bomb sites and so his capture and trial was big news.

I remember vividly seeing the filmed news reports the film depicts and the shock of how ordinary this monster looked.

A good film and worth watching.

You can't help but shed a tear

[adam_traynor · 7/10 · 5 February 2022]

Watching this and hearing eye witness accounts from all those people that endured all of those pure evil acts.

You can't help but shed of a tear for all of those survivors and for the victims of these pure evil acts.

Behind story of a historical event's TV documentation.

[Reno-Rangan · 8/10 · 23 July 2015]

This BBC film was based on the actual event that took place in the early 60s, Jerusalem. About televising the trial from a courtroom, which was the first ever documentary series to broadcast. One of a top Nazi officer, Adolf Eichmann, who fled during the end of world war two and settled down in the South America, but brought back with the help of Mossad to Israel to face the war crime charges. The movie won't demonstrate all those in the picture, but it begins with the television production house preparing to shoot the important television event in the history. So the show begins, but a boring first half and the next half is where all the interesting stuffs happen.

In my prediction this movie with the powerful contents would have easily beaten the 'The Imitation Game', if it was produced grandly and commercialised a bit of narration for the worldwide market. The real video clips of the trial were merged into the movie and that gave a strong effect which allows to realise how those actual occurrences has taken place. Actually, there are some uncensored cuts, which were shocking and disturbing. So pretty much like a semi-documentary, but due to the majority of movie clips that shot with actors and in the sets, it feels like a TV movie as it should be.

"While he watches the footage, we'll be watching him. Only then will we see the real Eichmann."

The performances were ordinary, because the screenplay preferred the main event to display, not the characters and their lifestyle. That makes it is not a biographical picture, though both the lead men were pretty impressive. We had seen many world war 2 and related to it movies, but this one was a different. Because of the story was set 15 years after the end of war. Simple movie, no twists, no developments, but reveals the facts from a different dimension. Because of this show, people around the world and filmmakers understood the cruelty of the Nazi prison camp. The movies those came afterwards about this war were inspired by the events that discussed in the courtroom. So if you are planning for this, expect it to be as what the title says, not a bit more or less.

8/10

Good Representation but Not Too Much More

[deepfrieddodo · 7/10 · 24 February 2021]

An obviously monumental time in TV and more importantly for the stories of those subjected to the war crimes The Eichmann Show displays, this film presents the documentary production as interesting if not entirely compelling. The investigation into someone's humanity is well studied, yet it doesn't allow the film to particularly go anyway, although it's opportunity to do so is limited.

The use of real footage from the time is well spliced into dramatic reenactments, and many scenes of concentration camps are incredibly difficult to watch adding to the importance of certain scenes. Overall it is a good representation of the case, however probably doesn't fully do the enormity of the context justice, camera angles just don't feel important given the context.

The film makers point of view isn't that interesting

[phd_travel · 3/10 · 9 August 2017]

This well intentioned but not very rewarding movie of the filming of Eichmann's trial delivers what the title promises no more than the title states. It's about the film maker's troubles and decisions filming the show. But who really cares if the producer and director argued about camera angles or cleverly concealed cameras in the court room. The actual survivors testimonies were hard to follow through translated voices. And Eichmann's own testimony and excuses were very briefly shown. At least for the trial they could have cut away from the camera room POV to put you inside the court room.

Anthony La Paglia plays Leo Hurwitz the director. But his accent comes through as Australian more often than it should. Martin Freeman is better but a little goofy looking.

This movie doesn't pretend to be a movie dramatizing Eichmann's crimes and capture. But it leaves you wishing for a well made movie about that instead and indeed there is one in the works so be patient. This one is not a must watch by any means.

Eichmann the show

[lotusgolden · 10/10 · 8 August 2015]

The movie was completely riveting. As one previous review stated 'you would have to be dead' not to be moved by this subject. I have been watching the Eichmann trail and all I see is a man in a glass booth day after day with no emotion. How is this possible? He looks like a quiet mild mannered man without a mean bone in his body. The movie shows the frustration involved as the cameras constantly move back to Eichmann's face- and there is no reaction. the twitch, the smirk, but really no emotion. The most horrific footage possible of innocent people starved,killed naked, tortured- and yet there is no reaction on Eichmanns face

How can someone look so normal, be so organized,act so sane and intelligent, and yet be a monster? I had no idea that the camera's were actually holes in the walls so as not to disturb or disrupt the proceedings. The movie tackles some of the deepest issues of the holocaust- it gave a voice to the survivors to finally tell their stories to the whole world. hopefully we won't repeat this ever again. If I were God, I might be tempted to find another Noah, build a new ark, and start all over

Very well made and directed, BUT!

[james-360 · 7 October 2020]

Leo Hurwitz dialogue was horrendous, he constantly complained or found fault with everything. I had to stop watching after a while.Pity its a great movie and subject matter.

Get ready to be emotionally destroyed.

[undeaddt · 7/10 · 31 October 2018]

The Eichmann Show is one of the best drama movies I've watched in my life. The fact that throughout the whole trial, in the movie they actually show inserts from the real trial is something that nobody did before and it is amazing. Combining the real videos with parts from the documentary about the Jews in the period of the WW2 is astonishing and heartbraking at the same time. This is not a movie only anymore, this is something far more than that, it is a real story, you are a real attender of the Eichmann trial, you can feel the dark energy flowing around him, making not a single facial expression while watching everything he did to the Jews. Be ready for tears in your eyes because if this does not make you feel emotionally unstable, you are as cold as Eichmann and the Nazis.

The face of evil

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 20 January 2015]

The Eichmann Show is a documentary drama about the televising of Adolf Eichmann's 1961 trial in Israel after he was captured in Argentina. Eichmann was regarded as one of the architect's of the final reckoning which led to the deaths of countless Jews and others.

Anthony LaPaglia is the television director Leo Hurwitz and Martin Freeman is the producer Milton Fruchtman who set about televising what became known at the time as the 'trial of the century' as it was broadcast in 37 countries over four months. It was maybe the first time witnesses described the horrors of the concentration camp to a wider public. As the hotelier, Mrs Landau (Rebecca Front) informs her guest, many people simply could not believe such events had occurred during the second world war.

Although Fruchtman had been given permission to film the trial by the authorities the Judges were uneasy as they felt the television cameras and the noise they made would be a distraction and they set about to hide the cameras or disguise them so they would be intrusive.

The film inter-cuts the black and white real trial footage. The historic documentary footage of the victims of concentration camps is rather distressing. Eichmann is impassive throughout the trial as the footage is shown and witnesses testimony is given.

Its a worthy piece but the drama was rather bland. Of course the historic footage is shocking and sickening, the dramatised parts in contrast failed to enthral me. I felt a better constructed documentary would had told the story better with the historical footage.

The Beginning Banality of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Week

[rjcicijr · 6/10 · 26 April 2020]

For the past 60 years and counting. Read Hanna Arendt

Good but not excellent.

[borgolarici · 6/10 · 15 June 2022]

I'm a huge Freeman fan but this is definitely not going to be THE movie about the Eichmann trial. Behind the scenes actually raises some reflections on the morality and ultimate purpose of television, but it doesn't do it in a particularly interesting way. Real footage takes up too much space (we're talking borderling documentary territory) and the mystery behind Eichmann's impassive and slightly arrogant face remains untouched. The director who wants to go beyond the cliché that this man was a simple bureaucrat (there are updated biographies that deal with the character more completely) will make a bombshell movie.

Trial of a monster

[scurvytoon · 10/10 · 23 January 2015]

You need to be dead to be unmoved by this. I had family in several camps, some nearly murdered in Katyn instead feeling "lucky" to be deported to Siberia where 80% did not survive. All around me as a boy there were camp survivors, how could I think they had made up even the least horrifying of the stories they thought I, a child, could stomach and understand? This film about the production crew who had to film the trial and not crack, not loose focus and not drop to the same level as the beast; it is important. It is important because even as they sat there and did their work, one man kept saying that we are all just as capable as Eichmann to cross that line, to be a fascist, to be the beast we do not believe we can be. How in 90 minutes can you convey the horror of the crimes and the effect of 4 months day in day out on those made to be there till the end of the trial? Probably not nearly as well as they would have liked and I suspect it would have been impossible. But come close they did with a series of powerful scenes that exposed the raw nerves, the sense of frustration of the survivors followed by the dignified and stoic release of tension when they knew the world was listening. In their lifetimes they had been allowed to tell their story and see justice of a sort.

The closing statement of the piece lifted from the original tapes reminds us of how close so many even today stand at the threshold of repeating these dehumanising acts. The film leaves the viewer in no doubt that the lessons learned in 1961 have been unlearned in many countries since and often with the same grim superiority and justifications. The unnamed nations and future monsters I leave to your imagination as does the film.

How often the entire process could have been derailed by well meaning judicial decisions, outside threats, and the unfolding events that at the time did overshadow the trial itself. How these bumps in the road were dealt with are explored with a deft touch that kept us in mindset of the director who at the end of the day needed to keep his mind clear and the staff focused on the job. The production of the trial is the star of the show but never shakes the feeling that it was ever going be like anything before or since. Many of the techniques pioneered at that trial are now taken for granted when broadcasting such events proving yet again that some of the most obvious things today are a result of forced innovation.

As for the cast, some better known for comedy and light drama, this was a wonderful chance to show they could do the heavy stuff, often in accents utterly foreign to them. Being a BBC film made to air without adverts and about subject matter that at times was deeply troubling, the script does not waste a second and you never check your watch. I particularly appreciated the use of the many European languages representing the vastness of the crime, then allowing the haunting song during the camp montage to be sung in Polish. Poles, Jews and Catholics alike,suffered massively at the hands of the Nazis and would have been the language most spoken in the court, it seemed only right.

One can never say about such a film that you enjoyed it, or that it was thought provoking, that would be strange and wholly inadequate. I would say though that it accomplished what it set out to do really well.

Standing around and watching

[punisherversion1 · 4/10 · 15 January 2018]

The Eichmann Show: Directed by Paul Andrew Williams and written by Simon Block

This is the true story behind the broadcasting of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann in Israel. The true story that this is based on is an important one. It is something that people need to learn. It is also something that can be learned by watching a documentary. The strong aspects of it are from the real footage. This felt more like a Wikipedia page about the event brought to life. There are brief moments with Leo Hurwitz trying to find the humanity in Eichmann. He finds that he is failing miserably. Everyone is stressed out and Nazi sympathers are trying to stop them.

While Martin Freeman makes everything look effortless, he's not given much to do here. Anthony LaPaglia does a lot of internal thinking. It's hard to make that cinematic and it pales in comparsion because of it. I understand where it was coming from but I wanted more from these characters. I know this is just my opinion and idea of what to make of everything.

They stress the importance of the event and the history making they're doing which is really just an overabundance of the same thing. It's also something that only people looking back at an event usually feels like. You see it on everyone's faces as they watch. There is a lot of people standing around and just watching things unfold. It doesn't make for the most fascinating viewing.

I would skip this one if you find a chance to watch it. It's just too basic for me. I give this movie a C.

They Listen ... Because Of You

[sddavis63 · 8/10 · 8 October 2018]

Ostensibly, this film is a recounting of the television broadcast of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann - the Nazi who was one of the major figures of the Holocaust and who was kidnapped by the Mossad in Argentina 15 years after the end of World War II and returned to Israel to face trial. And while we do learn a lot about the trial and about the Holocaust through actual footage of the trial, which included films of what went on at the concentration camps (and be forewarned - the footage is more than sobering; it is a horrific depiction of the depths to which humanity can plunge) I really found this to be more about the internal struggles of the director of the television broadcast - Leo Hurwitz. Hurwitz was a well regarded Jewish director who had been blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee - and so, frankly, he was familiar with the tactics of fascism. Given the opportunity for redemption in a sense by producer William Fruchtman's (also Jewish) offer to produce the coverage of the trial, we find Hurwitz often more interested in satisfying his own obsession with needing to understand Eichmann - not just what he did but why he did it, as he explained. Fruchtman is not unsympathetic to Hurwitz, and he understands the importance of the coverage of the trial, but as a producer he's also distracted by the need to maintain ratings, and by threats being made against he and his family for even being involved with the project. The two often butt heads as their competing roles and personal agendas collide over and over again.

I don't want to say that I enjoyed this movie. This is not a movie to be "enjoyed." It's a very dark film at times and includes footage that is - as I said above - quite horrific in nature, and it deals with what is certainly the prime example of how inhumane humanity can actually be. With Hurwitz's background (having been blacklisted) it also makes the point that in some ways fascism lies not very deep beneath the soil - a point very relevant to this day and age, when the tactics of fascism are being used increasingly openly by many politicians in the Western world. So there's a powerful (if somewhat understated) lesson here; a plea to be vigilant, to protect the rights of those who are often cast as the enemy and therefore treated as less than human. But if it isn't a movie to be "enjoyed" I would say that it's an admirable movie in many ways. Some of the backroom scenes, as Hurwitz has his camera operators change shots, etc. are somewhat dry - but add, I suppose, to the inherent tension in the movie played out between Hurwitz and Fruchtman - is this just a television show, or is it a search for understanding?

I thought the performances from Martin Freeman as Fruchtman and Anthony LaPaglia as Hurwitz were very good. No more than that - and I mean that not as a criticism. It's just that, like Hurwitz, I became as interested in the archival footage of Eichmann's unemotional demeanour and expression as he was confronted with the ugly truths of the Holocaust as I was with the stories of Hurwitz and Fruchtman.

One non-footage scene that really stood out for me was a conversation between Hurwitz and Mrs. Landau (Rebecca Front) - who owned the small hotel in Jerusalem where Hurwitz stayed during the trial. Mrs. Landau was a Holocaust survivor, and one night at dinner she and Hurwitz spoke. She recounted that once the war was over no one - even in Israel - wanted to hear the stories of the Holocaust. But then she told him that now she heard people speaking about it - because they had been watching the trial. "They listened ... because of you." Hurwitz had thought he had failed because he hadn't "explained" Eichmann. That conversation (near the end of the movie) seemed to change his perspective and make him realize the importance of what he was doing.

This may not be an "enjoyable" movie. But it is a fine and admirable film. (8/10)

Tries too hard

[pranesh-34163 · 2/10 · 30 August 2016]

This movies tries too hard to create conflict and tension within the film crew characters but the already known facts of the atrocities swamp and nullify the emotions exhibited by the characters. A rather bland depiction of a very important event in history. Throwing in children and wives to tug at the heart strings does nothing for this movie. A riveting story was already there and attempts to embed an emotional tear jerker behind the scene fails to deliver. A lot of drama revolved around controlling 4 cameras and missing the best shots. Shouldn't be rocket science - which rightly so was taking away a chunk of the viewing audience. The use of the historical footage was good and the colour shots looked rather unnecessary.

Only if you could sleep at night....

[samabc-31952 · 8/10 · 14 October 2019]

This movie is not about performances, direction or cinematography... this is not a story based on facts... these are pure facts... a fiction that encapsulates the actual court drama, the actual clips from 1960s when the number one SS officer Adolf Eichmann was captured and indicted and eventually sentenced to death... During this most ghastly trial of the mankind history, when a clip showing the skeleton looking 100s of human bodies were dumped by a big bulldozer into a massive grave hole made by the people whose turn was going to be next!!!!was played in courtroom, the architect who designed this massacre stayed apethetic...

Overall Somewhat Disappointing

[nigel_hawkes · 5/10 · 23 December 2021]

I wanted very much for this to be interesting and factual, and to have a heart; but I found it a bit of a mess.

Lots of shouting and swearing are no substitute for depicting the intended substance of the film, which is the difficulties encountered by the production team in Israel, and their "artistic" conflicts in making the filming of the trial "popular" to get good audience figures in-primarily-the USA. I also found some of the performances rather mannered and wearying.

It's not particularly factual either. In particular, the mention of the shameful deportations of children by the French (to Auschwitz) are interposed with very well-known footage of starving children in the Warsaw Ghetto; one reviewer here in these pages has apparently been mislead as he mentions that the people bulldozing in piles of bodies will be the next to be disposed of-absolute nonsense-that footage is of the British soldiers having to deal with the conditions discovered at Belsen. OK-this may be nitpicking over what was a ghastly period of history, but for those of us who have been immersed for decades in studying this history, one expects more from a modern production.

I watched this on London Live freeview channel in the UK-the soundtrack was rather difficult to follow and necessitated putting the volume way up, without much improvement-for me anyway, I'm afraid.

There's a potentially terrific film waiting to be made of this trial (to follow on from-to mention at random-"The House on Garibaldi Street", "Judgment at Nuremberg"...); but this isn't it.

Needs to be followed by copious amounts of your favourite cartoon/film that makes you laugh

[Earthmonkey16 · 9/10 · 20 January 2015]

Can there be spoilers on a rendition of an historic event??

This is a heartbreaking view, they used footage of the original Eichmann trial did they not? Anybody with a heart will have tears in their eyes and their stomachs turned over and over at the sight of the (thankfully short) parts of the documentary of Auschwitz. Very strong emotional attack.

Are men capable of being monsters, well Eichmann was.

The closing statements of the film, an accusation to all that judge people on their religion, the colour of their skin, on anything BUT their character.

The trial is the real story. Not the TV production of the trial.

[juttydds · 4/10 · 3 November 2020]

I fail to see the reasoning behind making a film about the TV production aspect of the Eichmann trial. It simply is not interesting enough to warrant its own film, compared to the trial itself. The 'movie' aspect completely relies on the old footage to stay afloat. Without the footage it's a massive nothing burger. Why should we viewers care about learning the logistical issues of, and the low energy internal conflict of the production crew itself? It's just meaningless next to everything else.

Nobody needs to care about Leo's infatuation with Eichmann's behavior.

The only interesting stuff is the actual archival footage of the trial, upon which this movie relies heavily to maintain viewer interest.

Problem is, most all of us have seen this footage 10,000 times over, in literally 100's of documentaries made on the subject. So, although extremely powerful, it's nothing ground-breaking. The modern Hollywood portions are just expensive filler around the footage.

The acting was good, the cinematography was good. Score was okay, if unremarkable.

A well produced film telling the wrong part of the story.

It's like making a film chronicling the internal strife of the janitorial department at the Apollo moon program.

Powerful Performances!

[indiapaige · 8/10 · 4 October 2018]

A timely reminder, with great accuracy, top notch performances. Martin Freeman & Anthony LaPaglia delivering best dramatic works here. In a year (2016) the world witnesses a resurgence of fascism this riveting epilogue from Adolf Eichmanns sentencing: "Each of us who has ever felt (they) were created better than any other human being, has stood on the threshold where Eichmann stood". Freeman, LaPaglia reincarnated positions of producer and director for first worldwide televised trial of Nazi War criminal Adolf Eichmann. Glimpsing recent history from production point of view, we see the fanaticism and death threats endured, alongside cathartic emotional steps to healing that this realtime broadcast of accused Nazi murderer Eichmann delivered to survivors, war veterans, witnesses, world at large. Trial of Eichmann afforded for millions the first safe societal space for WWII european survivors to begn to tell their truths.