Review – Max

How might the world have been a different place if Hitler had made a success of himself as an artist after World War One? Though this production doesn’t exactly answer the question, it does at least pose the possibility. John Cusack stars a well-to-do Jewish art dealer who specializes in the avant garde (Max Ernst and the like). He takes an interest in fellow veteran Hitler, seeing potential in his mediocre work. But he finds nothing show-able in the young corporal’s art until Hitler starts sketching his vision for the Third Reich. The movie is full of little twists like the notion that Nazi Germany could have been an art show rather than a genocidal nightmare. Noah Taylor does a good job as Hitler, playing him as an egotistical yet fragile and not yet entirely evil young man. Cusack is good. The rest of the cast is good. However, the movie thrives mostly on its concept rather than its execution, which in places is lackluster. Mildly amusing