Max

After serving in the First World War and losing his right-arm in the trenches, Max Rothman (Cusack) returns to a devastated Munich to try and rebuild his life in art by devoting himself to promoting new talent. As word spread throughout the artistic community about his wiliness to champion new artists, an army corporal approaches Rothman with work he did while in the trenches. Max sees that he has real potential but needs to let his pent-up frustration and anger out in his work. Captain Mayr (Thomsen) also sees this potential in the soldier but not in art but in the army's new post war weapon, propaganda. Torn between his passion for art and his newfound skill for public speaking, the corporal had to choose between Adolf Hitler (Taylor) the artist or Adolf Hitler the politician.

Charting the early years of Hitler's emerging political life, writer/director Menno Meyjes has given us an interesting look at the more artistic side of the most evil man who ever lived.

Not many people would have known that Adolf Hitler was a struggling, wannabe artist who wanted nothing more than a exhibit to show is talent to the Munich Jewish art community. Meyjes uses this fact to incorporate Hitler's political emergence on a wave of anti-Semitic propaganda with his total reliance on a Jewish art promoter to get his work shown. The fact that he is bringing down the people that could be his salvation is very poignant and upsetting.

Noah Taylor gives a remarkable performance as the young Hitler. Filling him with frustration, anger and contempt but with a need to be appreciated and respected for his art, Taylor performance shows that Hitler could have gone either way and the world could have been a very different place. The movie implies that he was a man who just wanted to be heard and whether it was through art or propaganda, Adolf Hitler would have been known in one way or another.

John Cusack is a good as ever in his fictional role of Max Rothman. An amalgamation of Jewish art dealers of the era, Rothman is Hitler's conscience and his way into an artistic world that he is so desperate to be part of. Ulrich Thomsen is also good as the German captain who sees Hitler's potential as a propaganda tool for the army and his anti-Semitic views.

What lets the movie down is the fact that Max Rothman is a fictional character. Many of the movie's events revolve around this character, as you'd expect from the title and the finale loses a lot of its impact because of the fictionality of him.

This aside, the theme of how choice can shape both a man's, a country's and a people's future is very evident and well handled by the cast and writer/director. With excellent performances and a fascinating look at what Hitler could have been, Max, despite the possible controversy, is an interesting look at the events that shaped Hitler into what he became.

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2003