Anthropoid (2016)

I don't know how I'm getting there, but I'm again discussing a movie based on real facts, despite my strong belief that the main reason to lose two hours with a film is to escape real life. "Anthropoid" describes an operation conducted in 1942, having as target the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the number 3 of the Nazi hierarchy at the time. It's the only thing I watched this week, so that's the topic of today.

I won't teach a history lesson here. In a couple words, this assassination was the only event of this kind that was successful during WW2 vs. a high rank official in the Reich. The action was planned and executed by a small group in the Czech resistance, Heydrich being assigned to Prague at the time to coordinate the occupancy of Bohemia and Moravia, and earning his nickname of "The Butcher". The historical analysis makes debatable to this day the utility of the assassination, considering the harsh reprisals in balance with the elimination of the main architect of the Holocaust, but let's leave the historical analysis for historians.

About the movie: it's split in two by the assassination, which takes place around half of its running time, between the planning and the outcome. It's a pretty accurate description of the facts if you compare them at least with what Wikipedia gives, where the details that are not that easy to grasp. In this context it's actually good that we have some tiny additions like two romance stories to compensate a bit, which anyway don't impact much the realism of the story. The two main agents deployed by the exiled Czech government to execute the mission - roles made by Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan - are very convincing, with an interesting nuance at some point of switch between certainty and anxiety. Besides that, the movie is quite good on the technical side, especially on editing. Even though it might not look so out of reality as the "Valkyie" operation that barely failed in removing Hitler from power, it has its own degree of spectacular which would put it normally in the action movies category. Unfortunately though, even the exaggerated facts seem to be mostly based on true facts, which finally makes you look at the movie a bit different than on an action film. Anyway, it definitely delivers on the impact side...

Rating: 4 out of 5