Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.
Starring Jonas Dassler, August Diehl, David Jonsson, Flula Borg
Directed by Todd Komarnicki

As a fan of history, I really enjoy historical films not for their accuracy (because, let's face it, hardly any historical film is 100% historically accurate) but for the real-life people they bring to the big screen - sometimes people who would've been lost to history forever. While I've heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer before, this movie made me look into his real-life story more closely and while this movie does a terrible job at depicting him realistically (so much so in fact that his descendants have come out to denounce the movie and his portrayal in it). Still, while the movie itself is an overly-long tiresome trope-filled movie, it did give audiences a chance to find out a little something about a man who went against the Nazi regime and helped change history.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Jonas Dassler) was a pacifistic preacher and theologian in Germany who opposed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party that overtook the German church and rallied others to oppose the threat not just to the German Christian church, but the country - and the world - as well.

The title "Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin." is one of the major issues that his family has with the movie. It's obviously stated that Bonhoeffer not only knew of the plan to assassinate Hitler (also known as Operation Valkyrie), but he had a major hand in the plot - an idea that goes against the man's convictions and pacifistic nature - and although it's never historically proven, Bonhoeffer could've known about the plot to begin with. So the "Assassin" part of the title is a bit misleading, as having it in the title suggests he was an assassin for the Lord when he never really killed anyone. He did pose as a spy to help destroy the Nazis from within, but he was more known for his outspoken outrage against the Nazi party.

It's odd how timely this movie is, with the current political climate and how it correlates to the Nazi party during World War II, especially concerning religion. Christian Nationalism is on the rise in America, where they worship a political figure more than God, where said political figure sells Bibles that include American propaganda like how the Nazi Bible threw in more Beatitudes about white people being more powerful, and where church pulpits are flooded with indoctrination rather than preaching about the love of God. Maybe I'm just being cynical on that end, but it's hard to disregard those correlations.

That being said, the movie is a little over two hours long, which is about forty minutes too long, as the movie uses flashbacks to detail Bonhoeffer's life as he sits in a German prison. We see him as a child, develop into a man of the faith, and grow a voice for the marginalized and downtrodden in a country overrun by an unruly dictator. It follows the traditional beats and doesn't offer anything new or exciting, and Jonas Dassler's performance is middle-of-the-road at best. He's easily forgettable in the role, save for one explosive moment when he preaches true fire and brimstone from the pulpit - but other than that, it's absolutely generic through and through.

The Score: C-