The Boys From Brazil
If They Survive...Will We?
Academy Award-winners Laurence Oliver (1949 Best Actor, Hamlet) and Gregory Peck (1963 Best Actor, To Kill A Mockingbird) star in this electrifying thriller based on the best-seller by Ira Levin.
Alive and hiding in South America, the fiendish Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele (Peck) gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project - he wants to clone Hitler. Barry Kohler (Steve Guttenberg) gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Oliver), but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed.
Mengele continues his murderous plot, creating 94 young Hitlers and killing their fathers to simulate the madman's own boyhood. As Mengele moves closer to producing global terror, Lieberman alone must discover the terrifying extent of his plan and stop it.
Member Reviews
Fairly average '70s thriller - Coconut_Willy
This movie has a pretty good storyline but the development is not as good as it could have been mainly because the pace seems to get slower as it advances. The first half hour is pretty good but after that, the film slows down quite a bit. Too bad because the novel was quite good and the production team assembled a very impressive cast. Numerous familiar faces doing a fair acting job with a good dialogue and interesting characters although I will agree with the other reviewers that character development is not very good in this movie. The sets and locations are very good, the soundtrack is good and the camera work is appropriate. If you are a fan of the genre and the era, you should enjoy this one as such a slow pace was common place at the time.well worth watching - paparufus
I guess the other reviewer was expecting a masterpiece due to the fact that this movie stars three Hollywood titans. This is still a very good movie despite the suggested lack of character development. I remember it making a great impact when I first saw it as a teenager.
Plot is interesting enough to carry the movie, and there are some thrilling moments as I recall.Time has not been kind! - MovieLover5
I always wanted to see this film, in part because the plot sounded rather interesting, but mainly because of the 3 big names: Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason. You'd think with these actors, how could the movie be anything but great? Well, I just found out they can make terrible movies the same as unknowns can.
Yes, Olivier does a very good job of portraying an elderly Nazi hunter (apparently modeled after the renowned Simon Weisenthal). In fact, good enough to have been nominated for an Academy Award. And Gregory Peck was OK, but not outstanding in his role of Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who performed barbaric experiments on concentration camp inmates. James Mason was absolutely wasted in the film, really having only a minor role as a Nazi officer. I think the problem is that at heart, the script was pretty shoddy and that, coupled with no character background or development, left these fine actors with not much to work with. Too bad, it could have been so much better.
Member Reviews
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Fairly average '70s thriller - Coconut_Willy
This movie has a pretty good storyline but the development is not as good as it could have been mainly because the pace seems to get slower as it advances. The first half hour is pretty good but after that, the film slows down quite a bit. Too bad because ...well worth watching - paparufus
I guess the other reviewer was expecting a masterpiece due to the fact that this movie stars three Hollywood titans. This is still a very good movie despite the suggested lack of character development. I remember it making a great impact when I first saw ...Time has not been kind! - MovieLover5
I always wanted to see this film, in part because the plot sounded rather interesting, but mainly because of the 3 big names: Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason. You'd think with these actors, how could the movie be anything but great? Well, I just ...