Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Anyone with even a bare modicum of interest in the history of the 20th Century, and the holocaust, will be aware of Simon Wiesenthal. I watched this movie when it was first shown on television and was deeply touched by it and the story it tells. Ben Kingsley is, as always, absolutely magnificent. I have never understood why it has not (to my knowledge) been repeated or why I have been unable to find it on video or DVD. The film portrays Wiesenthals experiences in a matter-of-fact, non-sensationalised and yet sympathetic way and succeeds in giving a glimpse of the moral and ethical difficulties he faced in coming to terms with what was happening around him. The 'Sunflowers' sequence is especially poignant in this regard, as is his meeting with the mother of a dead SS man after the war. I recommend it highly.