Goebbels and the Führer review – private life of propagandist shows grotesque heart of Nazism

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Joachim Lang’s bleak film shows a preening Goebbels and a careworn Hitler as they battle to convince the German public, and themselves, they will win the war In an appropriate spirit of cynicism and bleakness, German director Joachim Lang has made a film about the private life of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, the Hexenmeister or chief sorcerer of lies, and his always strained relationship with Hitler. Robert Stadlober plays the preening and self-pitying Goebbels and Fritz Karl is a careworn Hitler. Franziska Weisz plays Goebbels’s wife Magda, who at first resented his infidelities with showbusiness starlets but for the sake of the Fatherland submitted to the public image of a good Nazi wife and mother of six adorable children – whom Joseph and Magda finally murdered in the bunker before killing themselves. In its subversive, austerely satirical way, the film feels almost like a B-side to Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall from 2004, and Lang has perhaps even inhaled, just a little,...
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Miranda’s Victim review – law-changing courtroom drama stuffed with acting muscle

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Abigail Breslin is subtle as the 1960s victim of sexual crime in a dramatisation of a landmark case that is a welcome defence of US jurisprudence

Here is a fraught and muscular courtroom drama in the strident 1990s style, with the US legal system fitted out with a top-notch cast including Luke Wilson, Ryan Phillippe, Andy Garcia, Donald Sutherland and Kyle MacLachan. As various lawyers and judges, they ditch suit jackets, roll up shirtsleeves and make show-stopping objections in an account of the 1960s legal case that gave rise to the “Miranda rights” – “You have the right to remain silent … ” It’s a welcome defence of US jurisprudence for an era in which it is under threat from Donald Trump’s machinations, and is one that also benefits from the cooperation – apparently for the first time – of Patricia Weir, the rape victim at its centre (otherwise known by the pseudonym Lois Ann Jameson).

Played by Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin, Trish is the meek teenager abducted on her way home from her cinema usher job, driven out into the Arizona desert and sexually assaulted. Bravely choosing to breach the omertà regarding rape and testify, she manages to put labourer Ernesto Miranda (Sebastian Quinn) behind bars – until barnstorming lawyer John J Flynn (Phillippe) persuades the supreme court that due process was trampled during Miranda’s arrest, establishing the famous precedent. Manipulated by Detective Cooley (Enrique Murciano) into voluntarily stepping into the police precinct, Miranda is identified in a rigged lineup and his confession is heard without a lawyer.

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