Operation Finale (2018)

[Sharpie66]

Operation Finale premieres on September 14, 2018, starring Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley depicting the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina fifteen years after the end of World War II. 

[Sharpie66]

Bumping this up since it opened this week. I’m seeing it tomorrow with my dad. I have high hopes for it, since it was a TV movie on the same subject that I saw in the late ‘70s that really introduced me to the Holocaust, and started a lifelong obsession for studying it. 

[Sharpie66]

Saw it yesterday—I’ll give it a solid B grade. Oscar Isaacs and Ben Kingsley were both excellent in their roles and especially their conversations. The spy stuff was entertaining (I liked the hand-offs going on in a restaurant between three different agents and the waiter). 

The plot elements that I question on their historical veracity are where I have some issues, especially if they were added to punch up the script. First, did they have to have the lone female agent be the ex-girlfriend? Such a cliche. Second, was Clauss Eichmann actually involved in the search for his father alongside the police? Maybe, but I had never heard that before, and you would think that would have been mentioned in a tv documentary somewhere. 

I did appreciate the depiction of the fascist/pro-Nazi faction in Argentina at the time. The rather large German immigrant population post-WWII was very influential in their politics. And showing that it was both former Nazis living alongside Jewish survivors was jarring but equally true. I remember reading about one of the few survivors of Sobibor, who had moved to Brazil after the war, going to the prison to confront the commandant of the camp after he had been captured in Brazil in 1967. Stangl actually recognized him since he had been the camp’s goldsmith. The Brazilian government would never have extradited him if it wasn’t for the Eichmann trial. 

[Constant Viewer]

On 9/3/2018 at 9:55 AM, Sharpie66 said:

I did appreciate the depiction of the fascist/pro-Nazi faction in Argentina at the time. The rather large German immigrant population post-WWII was very influential in their politics. And showing that it was both former Nazis living alongside Jewish survivors was jarring but equally true. I remember reading about one of the few survivors of Sobibor, who had moved to Brazil after the war, going to the prison to confront the commandant of the camp after he had been captured in Brazil in 1967. Stangl actually recognized him since he had been the camp’s goldsmith. The Brazilian government would never have extradited him if it wasn’t for the Eichmann trial.

I remember hearing about that in the movie Escape from Sobibor.  He also found another official who was reported to have committed suicide. https://www.sobiborinterviews.nl/en/interviewees/2-profielen/12-stanislaw-szmajzner

I wanted to see this, but school got in the way. 

[methodwriter85]

That was REALLY great foreshadowing with the use of Imitation of Life. I was so scared for Haley Lu's character. I don't know though, something about this left me cold.