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Max

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Hungary, Canada, United Kingdom · 2002
Rated R · 1h 46m
Director Menno Meyjes
Starring John Cusack, Noah Taylor, Leelee Sobieski, Molly Parker
Genre Drama, War

In 1918, a young Adolf Hitler befriends Max Rothman, an amputee art dealer and gallery owner. He takes pity on Hitler, an aspiring painter, encouraging him to pursue his artistic ambitions. But the empathetic Rothman's mentorship can't stop the future dictator's descent into hatred and fascism.

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What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

50

Slate by David Edelstein

As a ravishingly photographed, high-minded meditation on the potential of art and therapy to exorcise the vilest sort of psychological poison, it is positively riotous -- an Everest of idiocy.

40

L.A. Weekly by Ella Taylor

Suggests that had young Adolf Hitler managed to get his art show, the Holocaust might never have happened. This seems absurd, not to say insensitive.

38

New York Daily News by Jami Bernard

A serious and thoughtful movie that probably does not mean to trivialize the Holocaust and blame the victim. But it is playing with fire nevertheless.

50

TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox

What does make the film disturbing is the way in which it positions Hitler as a mere mouthpiece for what was already in the air, a role he was convinced to play after suffering one disappointment too many at the hands of Jews like Rothman.

30

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

Just because people are objecting to Max for all the wrong reasons doesn't make it a good film, and it's not. It's a bizarre curiosity memorable mainly for the way it fritters away its potentially interesting subject matter via a banal script, unimpressive acting and indifferent direction.

60

Variety by Todd McCarthy

The film is ultimately too glib in its suggestion that Hitler's discovering his career path was a matter of sheerest chance, even an accident.

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