Review of The Boys from Brazil (1978) by Roland S — 08 Apr 2010

You know where you stand with Nazis. Throwing Nazis and conspiracy theory together in film is also a sure fire way of opening the door onto dozens of potential story-lines, very few of which will stand up to scrutiny from anyone with a degree of seriousness in mind. It is the combination of the downright preposterous with the embarrassingly genuine serious that makes 'The Boys From Brazil' awful.

Legendary Laurence Olivier plays Ezra Lieberman, an aging Nazi-hunter playing global hide and seek with heinous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele (played by equally big-cheese Gregory Peck) desperately trying to prevent his plan-which involves a host of Hitler-clones, from taking over the world.

Or something like that, but its presented with such an air of, quite frankly, pious self-earnestness that the leap of faith needed to connect to the plot becomes as appealing as congratulating Hitler for putting in the hours. Olivier and Peck are unquestionably two of the greatest actors ever, but their flamboyant, being polite, if not horrifically over-the-top performances don't detract one iota from the drivel on the display. God alone knows what accent Olivier is trying to pull off, and Peck seems to have tried to roll Hitler-Stalin and Christopher Lee into his look and display.

Basically nothing works. With a cast of such calibre its supposed to serious, and it could be if it didn't have the presentation and acting fiasco of a B-movie. With such a preposterous plot, it could have been a joke, but one that should have worked its way into a good old sci-fi-thriller. A lot of potential from the base novel wasted in a collection of horrendously over-the-top performances and direction.