ridiculous rating

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

6/15/18. Once again I got a chance to see how underappreciated Robert Sean Leonard is as an actor. I liked him so much in House, as he gave that TV series its soul and decided to catch movies Leonard has been in. He did an excellent job as the protagonist who as a young German teen is trying to make sense of the growing changes brought on by Nazism. It is somewhat unclear what this movie's center was. Was it a coming-of-age movie? A friendship movie? A war time period piece. Or, just a pre-WW Ii drama taking place in Germany. While it contained all these elements, it didn't provide any closure to some of the things that were going on. I am guessing, then, that it was the rise of Nazism in Germany, and how its need for blind allegiance was tearing existing relationships apart. The only reprieve was the joys of adolescence living life through music, in this case, swing and jazz. Unfortunately, the music is taken to represent the Jewish artistic sensibilities that is another reason to draw the line between the growing numbers of Nazi Germans and Germans who didn't want to be involved and just lived their lives. I suppose these are the themes, but one never knows except to say that Bale's character was one of extreme fanaticism that grew out of fear of an unknown future so much so it ruined his friendship with Leonard. Worth catching despite the lack of clarity in the plotting.

We who love this movie can not understand why it is not on BluRay. Any answers from anyone,,would be appreciated. This was GOOD film...looks so cloudy on a BluRay player.....PLEASE, re-format it. This needs to be doe for the fans of the movie, and the BluRay medium. The players are so fine, and the humbleness of Branaugh, is commendable.

I'll probably get a drubbing for this and a ton of "not helpful" votes, but I thought this movie was godawful! As well intentioned as it might have been (showing a different aspect of conditions in Nazi Germany) this production lacked so much as a wisp of authenticity. Acting was unconvincing, especially by the usually reliable Barbara Hershey and the no-lips Kenneth Branagh. It didn't help that some actors tried to adopt a German accent while others didn't bother to stray from San Fernando Valley English. The subject matter should generate empathy rather than stifled giggles, but blame that on the script and direction. This movie does not belong in the same category as films such as "The Pawnbroker," "The Diary of Anne Frank," "The Shop on Main Street," "Schindler's List," "Sophie's Choice," which cover a wide swath of proximate territory with far more verisimilitude and profundity.

I do love swing music and love the music and artists from the era. So did my parents who were contemporary with it. But they had the good fortune to love it in the USA. It was a dangerous thing to like Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and most of all Arthur Shawronsky who the authorities did know was Artie Shaw. But these squares were the Gestapo and Swing Kids is about the youth who loved American swing music at considerable cost.Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, Frank Whaley are three friends who are into American swing at a time in their country when such "jungle" music was Verboten. Swing Kids is the story about how all three were dealing with the growing strangulation of culture. One of the opening scenes takes place at a forbidden swing club where the kids are cutting a rug to Benny Goodman when word comes the authorities are near. Without a beat the band turns into a typical German Oompah band, the kind of music Herr Schicklgruber deemed acceptable to German youth.Which was being swallowed up by the Hitler Youth and the social pressures to join are enormous. Something that we in this country cannot fathom. I'm not a big fan of the current Pope, but about the only thing I'll give Benedict XVI a pass on was joining the Hitler Youth. At a certain point the wiggle room got less and less. Barbara Hershey as Leonard's mother gives a good performance as a woman keeping company with a Gestapo official for a little more comfort. Her husband and Leonard and David Tom's father had been arrested by the Gestapo a few years back and died as a result of their custody. The Gestapo official is played by an unbilled Kenneth Branagh who took no billing for his part deliberately.Swing Kids has a timely lesson for today if some in federal authority will care to learn it. The fundamentalist Moslems just as the Nazis hate our decadent culture. The answer is keep importing it into places like Iran by the cargo ship load. Don't bomb them to death, just send them our music and films.By the way our own fundamentalist Christians hated that music as they hate the music of today. Something about authoritarianism of whatever stripe just hates contemporary culture, whatever it is at the time.Swing Kids is a valuable lesson about freedom of expression wrapped up in a good entertaining package.