Er ist wieder da (David Wnendt, 2015)

Look Who's Back, the best-selling novel which posited that Hitler materialises in modern-day Berlin for some inexplicable reason, worked because the whole was narrated from Hitler's perspective and the author had Hitler's bombastic, self-important rhetorical style down to a tee. The film adaptation correspondingly only works when it sticks to the book, instead of giving the other characters back stories which only get in the way. Thus encounters between the Führer and real people are interwoven with the fully-scripted segments, with no clear distinction between the two, and the overall effect is sub-Borat because you never quite know what is meant as slapstick satire, what is serious political comment and what is just the filmmaker hedging his bets out of fear of the possible repercussions of making Hitler just a figure of ridicule even now in Germany. Unfortunately, the film never quite gets over this hang-up. The fact that the casting of an actor who's too physically imposing as the demagogue, even if he does get the voice more or less right, is a problem from the outset, becomes a secondary issue.

5/10