How dark and deadly can WWII Germany get? Discover Robert Schwentke's THE CAPTAIN

Antiheroes don't come much more non-heroic than the young German army deserter who goes by the  name of Willi Herold, and who -- thanks to the discovery of a abandoned jeep, a uniform and some food --  is soon impersonating a German Captain and getting up to some really awful stuff.

Herr Herold actually existed, and even if the movie made about him -- entitled THE CAPTAIN and just having its U.S. theatrical debut -- is fictionalized, this young man's short but shocking military career should astound and depress you, big-time.

The film's writer/director, Robert Schwentke (shown at left) has had a varied career, including both German and American films (from Flight Plan and RED to the Insurgent/Allegiant duo), but nothing he's done that I've seen would have prepared us for the bleak and nasty ugliness of this intimate little World War II epic. What young Herold does and how he manages it might defy credibility were the history of WWII not already so crammed with shock and unbelievable horror. As played by Max Hubacher (shown below), a young actor whose career seems to have been set in major


motion by this role and film, Herold remains as fascinating and mystifying as he is a cipher. We know nothing about him prior to his desertion (except a couple of platitudes his daddy told him). Though he initially seems like someone we might root for as he runs away from the German military police whose aim is clearly to kill him, once his escape is made and his disguise in place, he slowly becomes more and more horrific. All of which makes this young man's single scene of what seems like "feeling" (shown in the penultimate photo below) all the more bizarre.

Yet it takes much more than a single man -- even a high-level military officer -- to achieve what  is accomplished here. How Herold is helped along, and by whom, is what makes the movie even darker and more disgusting.

The apex/nadir is reached in a lengthy celebratory dinner honoring this "officer" and his work, with food and alcohol aplenty and even a pair of Jewish comedians to entertain the troops with ugly jokes. How those whom one might call "good" Germans are coerced into helping the horror is effectively demonstrated, and this landmark scene ends by offering up the single way out, when one is forced to enable this kind of evil.

As effective as is young Hubacher, the excellent supporting cast proves even better, with Milan Peschel (above and below, left) the standout, as the infantryman who initially helps Herold, only to grow increasingly aghast at (and a reluctant party to) his actions.

During the films final half hour, it grows nearly (and rightly) surreal, as this war must have seems for so many people. As director, Schwentke gets much not merely "right" but on-the-nose, though I wish he had done away with a few unnecessary artsy/fartsy overhead shots and that single moment when the excellent black-and-white cinematography (by the excellent Florian Ballhaus) must change to color in order to make a point that has already been made via the script.

Otherwise, The Captain is strong, hideous stuff. Gird up your loins and prepare. The movie will make you glad all over again that Germany and Hitler lost their war and should have you hopeful that Donald Trump and the Republican Party will lose theirs against America. We shall see.

Meanwhile, this Music Box Films release, running just under two hours and spoken in German with English subtitles, opens tomorrow, Friday, July 27, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, in Chicago at the Music Box Theater on August 3, and in Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt on August 10 -- before expanding to another dozen or so theaters over the weeks/months to come. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then scroll down to click on THEATERS.

A soldier's story and a would-be movie are at the core of Erik Nelson's doc, A GRAY STATE

Unless I missed it embedded somewhere in the soundtrack of the new documentary, A GRAY STATE, I heard no mention made of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder during the film, and yet everything about the later life and untimely death of David Crowley -- the Iraq/ Afghanistan war vet whose body was found, along with those of his wife and four-year-old daughter, shot to death in their Minnesota home (the three are shown below, with their dog, who survived the slaughter) -- fairly screams out PTSD! And the more this movie uncovers about the character and mental state of Mr. Crowley, the crazier he appearing to be becoming.

TrustMovies knew little to nothing about Crowley prior to seeing this film, so he had no preconceived ideas regarding this fellow, who apparently was some sort of hero of the alt-right movement (which I abhor). And while the man seemed happy enough to join the U.S. Armed Forces post 9/11 to fight in Iraq, after being told he could come home once that deployment finished, only to learn he had been redeployed in Afghanistan, this betrayal, as he saw it, simply added to what he already felt during the Iraq deployment regarding the ways in which our government had betrayed its soldiers fighting there, as well as the people we were said to be "democratizing" in the mid-east.

Now, it doesn't take an alt-right believer to find all of the above quite true. But, hell, what western democracy, save perhaps those of some Scandinavian countries, has not by now completely sold out its citizens to the interests of the wealthy, the corporations, Wall Street and the banks? But Crowley, post wartime, decided to become a filmmaker and shoot a movie that would show a USA taken over by a government bent on destroying the lives and the "rights" of its citizens. As directed by Erik Nelson, shown at left, the documentary is certainly interesting enough, as we follow Crowley's would-be "career" and the never-made film, to be titled Gray State, that was the non-existent centerpiece of that career..

From what Mr. Nelson has cobbled together for his documentary -- lots of archival images and footage, interviews with family and friends  (Mr. Crowley's father and Crowley's wife's business-partner and friend are both quite intelligent, appealing and moving in their statements) -- what we can ascertain from all this is that Crowley himself talked a great game and did not in the least live up to all his blather.

From the snippets we're shown of the would-be director's Gray State movie, as well as the cart-before-the-horse trailer he made for it, his movie offers little more than random acts of violence inflicted upon American citizens. Despite Crowley's ability to fill a wall with "signifiers," as above, having to do with the movie and/or maybe America's betrayal (à la the usual CSI investigation), the man seems to have accomplished nothing approaching a real movie.

One can certainly understand why the alt-right, in its blinkered stupidity, has come up with various conspiracy theories regarding the family's death, a couple of which we are briefly shown here. Yet as to the motive for what happened to the family -- by the police investigation, by much of what we are shown in the doc, as well as by even Crowley's own father -- it seems to me that the younger Crowley's inability to produce what he promised his backers and fans (which can also be seen, by the way, as part and parcel of his PSTD behavior) resulted in his taking the easiest, as well as the most awful, way out.

So, yes, this story is about as depressing as it gets, but still I wished for more insight to be provided by this documentary. Instead we seem to glide over the surface of just about everything here. How and where did David and his Muslim wife, Komel, meet and bond? That would be good to know. Showing us more of that much-talked about "trailer" for his film might also have provided Crowley with more credibility. Perhaps the most striking scene of all comes as Crowley's two Hollywood backers listen, astonished, to a recording of what their "wonder boy" really thought about them and the manner in which he felt he had to "con" them.

Along the way we witness the idiocy of so much social media (and that irredeemable asshole Alex Jones), and we hear and view a David Crowley who seems, almost from the get-go, to be a little bit nuts. And then increasingly so. Still, the fellow did get a Gray State movie made, after all. It's just one that offers a very different viewpoint from his own and has been directed by someone else.

From A&E Documentaries and First Run Features, A Gray State opens in theaters this Friday, November 3, in New York City at the Cinema Village, and on Friday, November 24, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3. Otherwise, wait for it on DVD, streaming and most likely the A&E Network one of these days.

A famous New Jersey contract killer comes to creepy life in Ariel Vroman's THE ICEMAN

Dark, dirty and generally disgusting much of the time, THE ICEMAN, from Israeli filmmaker Ariel Vroman (shown below), is also one of those can't-take-your-eyes-away-from-the-horror, true-life tales of a murdering man with little or no conscience for anything outside of himself and his immediate family and very small circle of friends. We've seen this done many times before, from various film noir to The Godfather through The Sopranos and their endless spin-offs. What distinguishes The Iceman are its straight-ahead narrative drive and excellent cast, with a number of actors appearing in roles that rather define their careers (Ray Liotta, shown in the penultimate photo below), while others are used so differently than we usually see them (Chris Evans and David Schwimmer) that they may go unrecognized until the end credits roll.

As good as the supporting cast remains (very good indeed), it's the movie's star, Michael Shannon, shown below and on poster, top, who will knock the socks off viewers unfamiliar with this actor's consistently fine work. Shannon is a relatively tall and rangy actor with a big, square face and huge eyes that, when they go dead, scare the shit out of you. He can be sad and funny and benevolent, too (see The Missing Person, Return or the just-out Mud for a good sampling of his other sides), but for sheer scariness, he's the go-to guy for this decade. He's also versatile enough to make each new bad guy he essays decidedly different from the last one.

As Richard Kuklinski, the notorious New Jersey killer, Shannon -- aided by Vroman's direction and co-screenwriting (along with Morgan Land, with the help of Anthony Bruno's book and James Thebaut's earlier documentary) -- turns this guy into a genuinely interesting, if very frightening, fellow. We get just a dash of the abused kids that he and his prison-inmate brother (Stephen Dorff, also nearly unrecognizable here) were at the hands of their nasty dad, along with a sense of useless religion hammered in from a very early age.

We observe early on that this man is dangerously violent when he somewhat overreacts, shall we say, to an insult aimed at his new girlfriend, Winona Ryder (above), soon to be his wife. From here, it's but an easy step into the world of organized crime and the more lucrative life of a hit man.

The movie doesn't waste time trying to explain how a murderer can be such a loving family man (see photo at bottom). We understand this pretty thoroughly by now; in any case, it excuses nothing. So Vroman vrooms ahead to the various crimes, shown with the ugliness they should be, and also with some interesting variations on the hit-man-and-his-victims theme. Some killings are shown quickly, others take a little time. The demise of a sleazy porn photographer (played by James Franco, above, probably repaying Shannon for that actor's appear-ance in Franco's own poetic misfire, The Broken Tower) takes longest of all and is quirky and effective on a number of levels. It also leads to the joining of forces (the character known as Mr. Freezy, below) that takes everything into even darker territory.

As I may have already suggested, there is not a lot that's new here overall, but the specifics of this particular story possess their own unique nastiness. Everything -- script, direction, performances and technical staff -- work together to give the movie a growing sense of betrayal, paranoia and impending doom.

If the film seems to suddenly and simply end, rather than feeling cheated in any way, I suspect you'll instead be breathing in a deep sigh of relief.

The Iceman, from Millennium Entertainment and running 106 minutes, opens this Friday, May 3, in New York City at the AMC Lincoln Square 13 and Landmark's Sunshine Cinema, and in Los Angeles at the Arclight Hollywood 15 and The Landmark.