Clothes make the man, particularly when the man in question is a young German deserter on the run from the Nazis who’s fortunate enough to find a high-ranking party member’s uniform in an abandoned staff car. Based on factual events, Willi Herold’s (Max Hubacher) masquerade as a Luftwaffe captain quickly jumps the track, leading to his maniacal riding herd over a P.O.W. camp for fellow German defectors. What starts as a traditional WW II combat picture soon gives way to delirious fits of surrealism — the Nazi equivalent of a 20-mule team is ordered to schlepp a car with an empty tank to the nearest filling station — climaxing in this year’s most audacious closing credit sequence. But while writer/director Robert Schwentke never tires of hammering home his message; it’s likely that the audience will. The standout cinematography by Florian Ballhaus — shooting in that gloriously self-contradictory crossbreed black-and-white ‘Scope — demands a big screen viewing. (2017) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.