Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

The first must-see film of the year.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Most film depictions of Hitler are WW2 movies about 1939 onwards so this impressively well produced 2 part television movie about 3 hours long fills a needed gap in the history of WW2. Things move briskly from Hitler's childhood to surprisingly elaborate First World War battles where his life as a soldier is shown. His anti Jewish speeches in beer halls to his eventual position of leader of the Nazi party and Germany are portrayed. It's extremely involving and has the thoroughness and clearness of a documentary without the dullness and detachment.There are a lot of characters some of whom are not that familiar that were instrumental in his rise to power and who tried to oppose him. Yet things aren't confusing. Liev Schreiber is convincing as an opportunistic German publisher who rides on Hitler's coattails along with his supportive wife played by Julianna Marguiles. Matthew Modine as usual plays the voice of good in as a journalist writing against the Nazis. Peter O'Toole makes a brief but convincing appearance as beleaguered Hindenburg.As Hitler, Robert Carlyle doesn't have that much physical resemblance to his subject but his intensity, often with frothing a the mouth makes the portrayal mesmerizing. He is personifies the insane fanaticism.It's quite an achievement that so much history could be shown relatively clearly without confusion in a 3 hour mini. Worth watching.

I was really expecting a critically accurate analysis of Hitler's rise to power. Instead I got a political diatribe. We all know the evil that was done, but making up a fictional story to support an agenda is just plain wrong. It just plays into the hands of the Nazis and Neo-Nazis. They can point out all the inaccuracies in this movie and the accompanying documentary and say that Hitler was just misunderstood and that the Holocaust never happened (a prime example is Iran's Ahmadinejad). I believe the truth is far more sobering and frightening than what this movie portrayed, particularly because Hitler was very cool, logical and calculated in his rise to power. He was brilliant in his judgement of people and their desires and motivations. By downplaying his innate capabilities we're very likely to repeat this abhorrent chapter of history again. Look at the current situation in the US and the antisemitism that that is being espoused by our own government. There are so many parallels: the high unemployment, middle-class discontent, government handouts, hatred of Israel, incompetent governance, ...

Hmmm, how to play Adolf Hitler? It's a role like Christ no one wants to touch it and yet if you do it right.... It's all about the presentation. Hitler: The Rise of Evil takes it's title quite literally. Adolf Hitler is practically foaming at the mouth he's so evil. Is this the right way to portray Hitler? No. The Adolf Hitler of this film is a cartoon with no ounce of humanity. But surely Hitler was a monster? No he wasn't and it is irresponsible of films like this to claim that he was. Nazism and the Holocaust were atrocities created by men fumed by irrational hate. If Hitler were some monster and pure concentrated evil it gives him an excuse. This film is a fantasy and a pretty comical one at that starring a mean ogre who comes down from his cave to wreck havoc on the world waiting for the knights to come slay him. Robert Carlyle's Hitler lacks any subtly at all. Fair enough I suppose neither did the real Hitler. The problem is his Hitler is a cartoon. No person in their right mind would listen to him for a second. What Carlyle needed to do was show Hitler's false face. Bruno Ganz' spellbinding portrayal of Hitler in Downfall remains the best portrayal because he played Hitler as a man and not a monster. The fact is when Hitler is dissected to his base level he has no real power and is nothing but a severely mentally ill man who accumulated a dangerous amount of power to enact his horrible dreams. When you portray Hitler as a cartoony monster it says that society had no part in his creation. Anti-Semetism, Military Chauvinism, and violent Nationalism were in the air and they created Hitler. The true danger and lesson that should be taken here is that the world is still capable of making a Hitler. What the film advertises is exploring the roots of evil of Nazism and it doesn't. Hitler is a demon child from hell. The same famous quote by Edmund Burke is stressed again and again,"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". It's a boring quote which has lost all meaning since originally spoken because of it's over usage. And it presents a problem here. In telling a story about Hitler you are not just telling a story about a mad man, you are telling a story about the country he violated and subjected to tyranny. And this is by far my greatest personal problem with the film. In telling the story of Hitler's rise to power you have to tell the story of the German people. Hitler rose to power by exploiting horrendous want and despair suffered by the German people. If we merely want to discuss evil than at the point of time this movie was set this is the greatest evil Hitler could have done. The movie would have you believe the entire country was nothing but blood sucking krauts and huns who became henchmen for a villain so cartoonish he should be tying up Roger Moore. The film it's self isn't very historically accurate so there really isn't much to get from it. It plays like a soap opera. Did I enjoy it? I don't like the implications it raises but it is highly watchable in a weird way. Sometimes melodrama can be engrossing but this is melodrama of the lowest sort and so I sort of felt guilty watching it. If you like historical soap operas than you probably will to a certain extent invest some level of interest in the film. The real question though is could your time be spent watching something more substantive?

I find it very unlikely that Hitler was anything like the person portrayed here. It looks like the actor is peeing in his pants every time he opens his mouth just to show the audience that he was evil..Some sides of his politics clearly qualifies as evil, but to my knowledge he was in private probably nicer than YOU.Where is the charming, charismatic person all his workers have been talking about in they're memoirs? The movie also full of half lies like: That he didn't deserve his Iron Cross. Wrong. That he killed his dog. Wrong. That he didn't have a normal sex life with Eva Braun. Wrong. Heinz Linge claimed quite the opposite. The list goes on. Because of this it is hard to take this movie serious. This is propaganda and entertainment and nothing more. The entertaining value is nonetheless OK.