Max (2002)

John Cusack plays Max Rothman, an upcoming artist who lost his painting arm during the first World War. Those who can't do, teach -- so Max opens a gallery and starts coddling promising artists, one of whom is a young soldier named Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor).

Adolf is, to put it mildly, a pain in the ass. He doesn't fit in with the others guys in his barracks -- an obvious know-it-all who finds the opinions and behavior of others intolerable. When Max reaches out to him, Hitler is rude even while making it clear that he desires fraternity. As Adolf is waking up to the possibilities of his canvas, the army is trying to wake him up to propaganda. Which path is his calling? Which will he choose?

The basic theme here is "if only Adolf Hitler could've made it as an artist, the Holocaust would never have happened"; kind of a "for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost" thing. But the movie does too good a job portraying Hitler as an extremely insecure man -- lashing out when he felt small (which was almost always). Success in the art world fluctuates. At best, success as a painter would have simply delayed the inevitable.

So -- interesting, though unconvincing, story. I was pretty glad when the movie ended...I couldn't wait to be done with both the foaming-at-the-mouth speechifying of Hitler and the stifling world (extending to his extracurricular sex life) of Rothman.

C+