BEFORE: I think I might have sped through this one once, or looked at just pieces of it, because the whole film isn't in my brain as a coherent whole. It doesn't help that the main character also appeared in "Slaughterhouse Five", one of my favorite films, based on a book by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., one of my favorite authors. Vonnegut was always intermingling his books, with recurring characters weaving their way through different stories. The character in question is Howard Campbell, an ex-American who becomes part of the Nazi propaganda machine.
THE PLOT: An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.
AFTER: Ah, so Campbell was really working for the American government the whole time (or was he?). His character's appearance in "Slaughterhouse Five" now makes a lot more sense (I think...)
The film opens and closes with Bing Crosby's recording of "White Christmas" - so watching this just couldn't be more timely.
The story is told in flashback, as Campbell sits in an Israeli prison, awaiting trial for war crimes. His story reveals that he was a double-agent, working for the Nazis but also secretly broadcasting information about Nazi Germany to the U.S. His character is a bit like a Nazi Rush Limbaugh (or is that redundant?), or a Tokyo Rose if you will, and after the war he relocates to New York City - which he calls "purgatory" and tries to forget his past.
But the past has a funny way of catching up with him, and after one of those great only-in-New York coincidences, his past is revealed, and he's treated as a hero by some radical U.S. fringe political grounds, and reviled by Holocaust survivors at the same time. There are further twists I don't want to reveal here -
But Campbell seems like he's used as a pawn by whatever group he happens to be with - the Nazis, the Russians, the CIA. I guess once you take away a man's country, his politics, his livelihood and his love, what's left is an empty shell that can be filled with whatever ideology you want.
No one captured the absolute absurdity of war, politics, and the human condition better than Vonnegut, in my opinion, and that shines through here. Things don't tend to add up to a coherent whole, but in a way that's a point. Look for a cameo by Vonnegut himself, seen in a crowd on the street late in the film.
Starring Nick Nolte (last seen in "Q&A"), Sheryl Lee (with the fakest German accent since Teri Garr in "Young Frankenstein"), Alan Arkin (last seen in "Firewall"), John Goodman (last seen in "The Hudsucker Proxy"), with cameos from Arye Gross, Kirsten Dunst (last seen in "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People"), Zach Grenier (seen last night in "Rescue Dawn"), David Strathairn (last seen in "The Bourne Ultimatum") and Henry Gibson as the voice of Adolf Eichmann.
RATING: 6 out of 10 typewriter ribbons
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