Ralph's Movie Reviews: THE BOOK THIEF

Friday, December 6, 2013

THE BOOK THIEF

Wartime drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS

Sophie Nélisse: 11-year-old Liesel Meminger

Geoffrey Rush: her adoptive father Hans Hubermann

Emily Watson: his wife Rosa

Nico Liersch: 11-year-old Rudy Steiner

Rainer Bock: Buergermeister Hermann

Barbara Auer: his wife Ilsa

Ben Schnetzer: Jewish refugee Max

REVIEW

This story of a young girl who learns to love books begins before the onset of World War II. However this is a sanitized version of the real thing and does not ring true: the flags are all bright and pristine, not faded and frayed; the cars are all clean and polished not dusty and dirty; the uniforms are all pressed and immaculate, not tattered and torn; these Nazis rough up citizens and burn books, not people.

Several other shortcomings are much in evidence: with a run time in excess of two hours it is a tad too long and the narration by the Grim Reaper serves only as an unwelcome intrusion and people speaking English with a funny accent and using a smattering of German words.

On the other hand the performances are all top-notch although that of Sophie Nélisse is the best, possibly garnering a nomination for an award of some sort?

CLASSIFICATION

for some violence and intense depiction of thematic material.

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.