Films > Film Reviews

Anthropoid

10/09/16

Rattling along with uniform bravado and tension, this is a neat WW2 film that does well in displaying the planning of such a powerful moment during the drama of the Nazi regime.

Agents Jozef Gabcik (Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubis (Jamie Dornan) make their way into Prague knowing they have an operation to proceed with. This is Operation Anthropoid; a task to assassinate the third highest ranking Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich. The two of them, with help from the Czech Resistance, plan their method of attack carefully for the 27th May 1942.

I must say first of all that though there are wonderful elements of costuming, location and accented detail throughout the first act, it does go by ever so slowly. Despite the fact that that lets us as the audience have a chance to breathe in the dangerous atmosphere and understand the characters motivations, it almost drags with dialogue and Hollywood-style romantic subplots that don’t sit right.

Once the 60 minute point hits, though, the film shifts a gear. This is of course as we witness the assassination attempt on real life German figure Heydrich. The sequence we get could possibly be one of the best unnerving bouts of cinematic tension I’ve seen; it’s paced effectively, performed amazingly and with a gripping score on top the scene becomes highly strung and appears just as the massively important event in the war effort it was.

Sean Ellis directs the majority of this film in an engaging manner. He falls short of the authentic object now and then, or as I said takes too long in the first act, but with the above mentioned sequence and the following aftermath we kick into an aggressive third act seeing the Gestapo and other officials hunt down the Czechoslovakian fighters. In a way the church violence and stand offs look more entertaining than bloody, painful or uncomfortable, which perhaps it should have been instead, but all guns are literally blazing as we see these brave soldiers defend themselves.

For such a huge event in WW2 and the task they underwent, I feel ashamed I’d never heard of it in any capacity. This movie, then, is brilliant for shedding light on a group of men deserving of their place in the history books, if not totally brilliant as a movie.

6.5/10