What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

John Shea and Bill Nighy are excellent as two German brothers involved in the most brutal example of human evil in recent memory, dealing with the rise of Adolf Hitler in completely different ways. They come from a good family, and with issues facing Germany's economy after World War 1 their lives are headed in different directions. At one point, they are fighting to protect Jewish Professor Jose Ferrer from attacks of vicious young S.S. leaders of the not yet fully powerful Nazi party, but destiny will change all that.All you really have to do is pick up history books to read about the atrocities of 20th Century leaders like Hitler, Lenin and Mao Tse Tung, but to see it either through newsreels or various dramatic adaptions has quite a larger impact. What makes this stand out is the psychological look into the reasons why certain Germans supported the Nazi party, and it wasn't a belief in what they were doing to those they knew who just happened to not be what the Reich considered to be the perfect "Arian".The brutalities are often downright inhumane, so be prepared. Jews, homosexuals, the mentally ill, other various enemies of the state. They all get their time here in being depicted. Lucy Gutteridge is lovely as the young lady whom one of the brothers love, first against their rise, later seen entertaining them in Russia. Emulating the emcee from "Cabaret", Tony Randall scores in a small role as an obviously gay spy. In his memory of serving in World War II, veteran Broadway producer/director Harold Prince recalled seeing characters just like Randall's and "Cabaret's" emcee, a staple in German cabarets even after the war.Hitler is caught on camera several times, often sneaking around to catch a victim of his atrocities, in one case one of his own men with another man. This T.V. movie doesn't fail to leave out much detail but jumps from year to year with a jarring effect. It doesn't impact the overall intensity of the film which also features David Warner and Carroll Baker in important parts. Thus doesn't delve much into the Holocaust, but that had already been dealt with in a T.V. mini-series. What it does show is the social anxiety of humanity outside the walls of concentration camps, on the streets where other horrendous events were taking place, destroying innocent lives and cowardly souls in the process.

Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil tells the story of this para-military force. the personal enforcement arm of Adolph Hitler in the Nazi movement and the Hoffman brothers and their connections.Bill Nighy is the cleverer of the two brothers, recognizing the Nazi Party as the coming force in Germany in 1931 and decides to join this elite group. His brother John Shea likes a good time which includes a brawl every now and then. The SA under Ernest Roehm seems like his place in the Nazi movement.Well we all know what happened to Roehm as his ambitions began to exceed even Hitler's. Shea gets himself tossed into Dachau for a little Nazi style rehabilitation. During the Thirties before the war, places like Dachau were not yet the systematic slaughter camps they later became. Shea eventually is released and is drafted into the army.In the meantime Nighy becomes an upwardly mobile guy in the S.S. and a special favorite of Reinhard Heydrich, very chillingly played by David Warner. Through all this Carroll Baker their mother worries about her boys. She's never been crazy about the Nazi movement, she sees what it's doing to Germany and her family. She's most of all concerned with her youngest son who is played by three different juvenile actors who is an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth.What becomes of the Hoffman family is a tale tragically told many times over in Germany of that period. In this most British cast film, Tony Randall as a German comedian with trenchant observations of the time and Jose Ferrer as a Jewish professor have two excellent cameo roles.No new ground is broken here, but this is a story that deserves retelling thousands of times over.

Handsomely produced TV film is an ambitious project in that it follows the rise of the Third Reich while telling the story of a German family, in particular, two brothers (BILL NIGHY and JOHN SHEA) who are swept into the wartime problems when the oldest joins the SS in 1931 and becomes a good Nazi (until he sees the scope of the horror) and the other eventually joins because he's under the illusion that he can change things from the inside.Although it covers a span of '33 to '45, none of the actors age noticeably, the one weakness in an otherwise carefully detailed production.This is not the first time this sort of subject has been handled. A less epic, more narrowly focused melodrama of two brothers with opposing viewpoints was made in the 1940s (UNDERGROUND - 1941) with JEFFREY LYNN and PHILIP DORN as German brothers taking opposite viewpoints of the wartime philosophy and directed by Vincent Sherman. Although it was a well done melodrama, it did not attempt to get the full flavor of the Third Reich and its various operations as this film does.JOHN SHEA is especially impressive as the brother who speaks his mind against some of the Nazi practices and at one point even ends up for awhile in Dachau, the concentration camp. The other brother manages to get him released but there are still many trials and tribulations for both of them before the film reaches a dramatic climax. CARROL BAKER does a nice job as a worried German mother.David WARNER is impressive as Reinhard Heydrich, the sarcastic and brutal Nazi officer who gets his comeuppance before the war is over. All of the performances are first rate and the story covers a good deal of actual history without ever losing track of its main characters.Absorbing stuff, lengthy, but well worth watching.

I believe this was a made for TV film. It's is the story of two German brothers, one of whom joins the SS in 1933 and the other joins the SA. The two organizations vie to become the predominant force in Nazi Germany. Eventually, the SS won out and many of the people who joined the SA were executed or imprisoned by the SS. It now seems that only the SS brother can save the SA brother. The film follows both of them through World War 2, a period spanning 12 or 13 years, although neither brother (or the love interest) ever ages a day. It depicts the evil of the SS relatively well without the use of many execution/extermination scenes. Little mention is made of the mass slaughter of Jews, although it is more or less implied. The acting in the film is better than I expected, especially since there are few recognizable names in the cast. However, the acting is merely adequate. However, it was very cheaply made and it shows. There are some plot holes that detract from the overall enjoyment of the film.