My Fuhrer Hollywood Movie 2009
Cast and Crew
Release Date: August 14, 2009
Director: Dani Levy
Producer:Stefan Arndt, Barbara Buhl, Andreas Schreitmuller, Bettina Reitz
Screenwriter: Dani Levy
Starring: Helge Schneider, Ulrich Muhe, Sylvester Groth, Adriana Altaras, Stefan Kurt, Ulrich Noethen, Lambert Hamel
Genre: Drama
Plot Summary
A Jewish acting coach named Adolf Grunbaum is plucked from a concentration camp to coach the ailing Hitler for an important New Year's speech, just four months before the end of World War II.
n December, 1944 Berlin lies in ruins and the war is as good as lost. Joseph Goebbels is convinced that all the country needs is a re-energizing speech from the Führer. Adolf, however, is only a shadow of his former self; demoralized and depressed, he hides in his office and avoids contact with the public.The only man who can help is Germany’s finest acting teacher, Adolf Grünbaum – a Jew. Goebbels spirits the teacher and his family out of a concentration camp and sets them up in the Reich Chancellery, with only five days for the Führer to return to top form. Professor Grünbaum employs everything from relaxation exercises to psychotherapy in his work with the Führer; when he takes Hitler back to his difficult childhood, the man’s traumatic memories bring him to tears. The momentous day of the Führer’s speech finally arrives, but an unnerved Hitler loses his voice and forces Grünbaum to hide under the stage and deliver the fiery speech to the masses while the Führer lip syncs and gestures wildly from the platform above. Soon, though, Grünbaum begins deviating from the written and practiced speech and presents an utterly different interpretation of Germany’s situation, which leaves the assembled masses visibly astonished.
Review
In December, 1944 Berlin lies in ruins and the war is as good as lost. Joseph Goebbels is convinced that all the country needs is a re-energizing speech from the Führer. Adolf, however, is only a shadow of his former self; demoralized and depressed, he hides in his office and avoids contact with the public.The only man who can help is Germany’s finest acting teacher, Adolf Grünbaum – a Jew. Goebbels spirits the teacher and his family out of a concentration camp and sets them up in the Reich Chancellery, with only five days for the Führer to return to top form. Professor Grünbaum employs everything from relaxation exercises to psychotherapy in his work with the Führer; when he takes Hitler back to his difficult childhood, the man’s traumatic memories bring him to tears. The momentous day of the Führer’s speech finally arrives, but an unnerved Hitler loses his voice and forces Grünbaum to hide under the stage and deliver the fiery speech to the masses while the Führer lip syncs and gestures wildly from the platform above. Soon, though, Grünbaum begins deviating from the written and practiced speech and presents an utterly different interpretation of Germany’s situation, which leaves the assembled masses visibly astonished.
December 1944: the “total war” is as good as totally lost. Goebbels, however, isn’t willing to be so easily defeated. On New Year’s Day, the Führer is supposed to re-ignite the public’s fighting spirit with an aggressive speech. The only problem is that the Führer can’t do it. Sick and depressive, he is avoiding the public. The only person who can now help is his former acting teacher, Adolf Grünbaum–a Jew. Goebbels spirits him and his family out of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and sets them up in the Reich Chancellery. Time is running out - the Führer has only five days to return to top form.
Sixty years after the fall of the Third Reich, German filmmaker Dani Levy takes the bold step of playing the most notorious man of the 20th century for laughs in this offbeat historical comedy. In December 1944, the war in Europe is in its final stages; Germany has been decimated by Allied attacks, and the Third Reich is fated to collapse in just a few months. With the Nazi empire in tatters, Adolf Hitler (Helge Schneider) is understandably depressed, and while he’s scheduled to give a major address to the nation on New Year’s Day, he can barely summon up the enthusiasm to get out of bed. Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth), Hitler’s propaganda czar, realizes the Führer needs some help to get out of his funk, and thinks some coaching from a trained actor would help him put on a brave face for his big speech. Goebbels approaches Adolf Grünbaum (Ulrich Mühe), one of Germany’s most respected thespians, and asks him if he’d be willing to help Hitler prepare for his address; since Grünbaum is Jewish and currently residing in a concentration camp, he jumps at the chance, provided his wife and children are also released and the camp is shut down before the next round of executions. While Goebbels and his men have no intention of honoring Grünbaum’s latter request, they are willing to free his loved ones, and soon Grünbaum is spending his days with the emotionally immature dictator as he tries to help him get back on his feet. Meanwhile, Goebbels and SS leader Heinrich Himmler (Ulrich Noethen) suspect that Hitler may be too far gone for help and start hatching a backup plan, in which they’ll kill the Führer in a phony accident and seize control of the Reich. No stranger to controversy, writer and directory Levy’s previous project was Go for Zucker, a comedy which poked fun at the division of Berlin during the Cold War and one man’s opportunistic embrace of Orthodox Judaism. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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