"The Boys from Brazil" is a fun thriller. From a book by Ira Levin, who also wrote "Rosemary's Baby", it has an even more plausible premise today: Joseph Mengele, hiding in Paraguay, has cloned around a hundred Hitlers, sent the babies off to various countries to be raised in circumstances as Hitler was, and then later unleased upon the world. Gregory Peck plays Mengele, James Mason is one of the Nazis in the plot, Laurence Olivier is the Nazi hunter no one supports, Lili Palmer is his sister, and Steve Gutenberg is a journalist hot on the trail.
It's delightful to see the three old lions chewing up the scenery, and the kid who plays young Hitler is scary, Jeremy Black. The pace is perfect, the tension is bundled between scenes with humor, and the film leaves you with a lot to think about: nature versus nurture? how much of our destiny is in our hands? what if Hitler had lived with a different set of circumstances.
The movie is fun, and even zany, while being scary and bizarre. There is a scene with Rottweilers that may make you stick to cats. It's worth a look.
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