Little boys shouldn’t be playing with Nazis. Not by a long shot. But young baby-faced Todd didn’t happen to see the signpost that warned him off. Cleverer than the FBI, Israeli espionage and the cops put together, he discovered that his neighbor was a Nazi in hiding. And he devised a good plot to blackmail him.
Mr Denker was a Nazi all right. Keeping himself to himself, he lived a quiet life watching television and drinking too much. He didn’t need trouble and didn’t go looking for it. But trouble found him, in the form of Todd, who came barging into his house one night with no excuse at all. He confronted Mr D straight out and told him he had everything he needed on him including fingerprints. In short, he had him where he wanted him. Now, was Mr D going to cooperate or what?
All Todd wanted was to hear Mr Denker’s stories. What did he do, what did it feel like? Specially what did it feel like. Mr Denker had little choice. Soon the two began a series of evening meetings where Mr Denker, warming up to the subject, told the young lad story after horrific story and answered question after gruesome question. Did anyone ever survive the gas chambers? Well… yes. Once there was this leak in the pipes and oxygen mixed in with the monoxide. It was over an hour before they found out what was wrong…
Todd ignored friends, school work and even the girls as his head flooded with horribly live scenes of torture, experimentation and murder in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. He couldn’t focus on anything normal in the day and had nightmares when he tried sleeping. His grades slipped. He killed a bird…
What young Todd also manages to do is to reawaken the Nazi in General Dussander, Mr Denker. Soon it isn’t clear who’s manipulating whom and who’s in control. Unsavory things happen. Mr Denker tries to fry a cat. Todd gets into trouble with the school counselor. Someone gets murdered. And so on. And then Mr Denker has a heart attack and has to go to hospital. He’s also discovered – with many implications for Todd, who failed to report what he knew.
I don’t know. The theme and the idea are disturbing. The acting from Brad Renfro and Ian McKellan is great. But something makes you feel detached. You don’t get emotionally drawn in and don’t find yourself rooting for anyone or anything. It doesn’t engage, even if it creeps you out a little. Overall not a film I’d look back on and think anything in particular of.