Terrible Acting

As far as I'm concerned this is one of the most incredible examples of terrible acting and miscasting I've ever seen. Rutger Hauer, whose acting I usually greatly admire, was just plain lousy in his portrayal of Albert Speer. Half the film was simply his sheepish reactions to what someone else was saying. The portrayal of Himmler was a "you've GOT to be kidding." The way this actor handled the job, I was convinced at some point we would hear him say, "Smoke good. Fire bad." Elke Sommer . . . I'll just say 'bad' and leave it at that. I thought Ian Holm was terribly miscast as Goebbels. Not only did he look absolutely nothing like Goebbels, but his portrayal of Goebbels was also absolutely nothing like the real Goebbels.

I did like Derek Jacobi's portrayal of Hitler. It's rare to find an actor who can play a believable Hitler, and Jacobi wasn't all that believable either, but he handled the job better than any of the major actors handled theirs. I thought his accent was one of the more intelligent things in the film. Hitler was Austrian and had an Austrian accent, definitely a different accent from a native German. Jacobi's accent is different from everyone else's, so that, at least, was a good idea.

All in all, I thought this was one of those films that could have truly been excellent, but totally failed due to the casting and horrendous acting. My neighbor's kid could have done a better job.