I'm betting if this weren't Roy Sheider's last screen appearance it would attract little attention. There's no doubt Joshua Newton's film was made with the passion of a man with a painful family tale to tell.
The trouble is, the telling is pedestrian, and, dare I say, quite self-indulgent, which is such a shame. Individual tales of the holocaust and how Nazis and Jews behaved need searing points of identification and something other than a simple catalog of incidents. Powerful screen treatments such as The Pawnbroker, or Sophie's Choice use star names so the stories can resonate beyond the running time.
Newton tries to achieve this, not just by using Sheider, but by a weak and predictable modern tale with flashbacks. He attempts to impose themes such as survivor guilt, the essence of vengeance, family breakdown. But it all feels a bit like trying on clothes in a 2nd-hand shop.
We're led into the story by Scheider's unannounced visit to Nuremburg -- the city, don't forget, of the Nazi war crimes trials. It's where his estranged son lives with a wife and two kids. He's being driven by ... well, yes, we learn it's revenge against the murder of his parents and younger siblings.
But if we check the logic -- the man, Joseph, comes to Germany from NY where he escaped, grew up, married, etc. He's lost touch with his son Ronnie. Now, Germany's not exactly a small country. So what the hell does Joseph think will happen once he gets there?
When he does recognize a man ... and this is what? five decades after the event ... how convenient that he lives in the same apartment building as Ronnie.
In fact, stumbling to gabble out his family tale, Newton's structural errors alienate us from the story, rather than draw us in.
I guess he thinks the snippet-scenes of Joseph's teenage years will fill in the gaps. But they're just so sketchy. We have the Jewish boy who disappoints his family by his friendship with Christians. He falls in love with a Christian girl. Her brother's in the army. Guess who's implicated in Joseph's family's murder?
We never really are allowed to understand Joseph's choices, so none of the contemporary stuff engages us. We watch, bringing to the story everything we know about the Nazi horrors ... but it's all at a remove.
In his last film, Scheider is terrific when he's given something to do except look off into the distance of his memory. Newton's used his own son as the young Joseph, and the Hollywood bandwagon is being jumped on by those who want to turn him into a heart-throb.
But I don't want to be thinking of all that as I watch. I want to be catapulted into a powerful story, familiar, sure, but with something original. Is that too much to ask?
