12 Angry Men but instead of jurors you get a table of heinous Nazis discussing the intricacies of what would be the Holocaust.
What it's about
In 1942 Germany, SS officer Reinhard Heydrich (Kenneth Branagh) calls a meeting to discuss the Final Answer to the Jewish Question, but he’s met with mixed reactions when he proposes his solution.
The take
Like 12 Angry Men before it, Conspiracy follows a group of men who come to a standstill when asked to make a crucial, fateful decision. The two films are mostly stationary and dialogue-heavy, but where the former is hopeful, the latter is purely heinous. Sure, the Nazi officials argue amongst themselves about the Final Answer to the Jewish Question—in other words, the genocide of European Jews—but the debate is less about the morality of the act than the practicality of it. No one in that room is redeemable. They’re varying levels of evil, but evil nonetheless. It’s a testament to the filmmakers, then, the entire film manages to be stirring. Loring Mandel’s script is incredibly taut and intelligent but never lets you fall for the officials’ wise-sounding traps. Director Frank Pierson, for his part, expertly paces the movie, knowing when to bring out the big guns (mostly via Colin Firth’s impassioned Wilhelm Stuckart) and when to rely on subtlety. It’s a fine example of how a film can succeed with few but quality parts, but more importantly, it’s a timeless reminder of how unnervingly plain evil can look.
What stands out
The evil glee on Branagh’s eyes as he proposes violent genocide is bone-chilling and stays with you for quite some time.
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