The Exception (2016)
Country: GB/US/GER/BEL
Technical: col/2.35:1 107m
Director: David Leveaux
Cast: Lily James, Jai Courtney, Christopher Plummer, Janet McTeer, Ben Daniels
Synopsis:
A conscience-stricken German officer is given the patsy detail of looking after the security of the Kaiser in exile in Holland, ostensibly because he is important to the Reich, though really to flush out royalist reactionaries. Meanwhile a Jewish British agent masquerading as a housemaid at the Kaiser's residence bides her time, keeping her Lebel well oiled.
Review:
This fashionable piece of WW2 arcana operates in a similarly alternate reality to films like Where Eagles Dare, one where the Kaiser is cuddly old rogue, as anti-semitic as the next man but one who doesn't like the details discussed at the dinner table; where the only conceivable reason for invading the Netherlands can have been to join up with him; and in which a Dutch-Jewish maidservant under strict scrutiny from her employers allows herself a fling with the one man who can shoot her on the spot, presumably because she is an unerring judge of character. That said, it gets up a reasonable head of steam in the second half.
Country: GB/US/GER/BEL
Technical: col/2.35:1 107m
Director: David Leveaux
Cast: Lily James, Jai Courtney, Christopher Plummer, Janet McTeer, Ben Daniels
Synopsis:
A conscience-stricken German officer is given the patsy detail of looking after the security of the Kaiser in exile in Holland, ostensibly because he is important to the Reich, though really to flush out royalist reactionaries. Meanwhile a Jewish British agent masquerading as a housemaid at the Kaiser's residence bides her time, keeping her Lebel well oiled.
Review:
This fashionable piece of WW2 arcana operates in a similarly alternate reality to films like Where Eagles Dare, one where the Kaiser is cuddly old rogue, as anti-semitic as the next man but one who doesn't like the details discussed at the dinner table; where the only conceivable reason for invading the Netherlands can have been to join up with him; and in which a Dutch-Jewish maidservant under strict scrutiny from her employers allows herself a fling with the one man who can shoot her on the spot, presumably because she is an unerring judge of character. That said, it gets up a reasonable head of steam in the second half.
Country: GB/US/GER/BEL
Technical: col/2.35:1 107m
Director: David Leveaux
Cast: Lily James, Jai Courtney, Christopher Plummer, Janet McTeer, Ben Daniels
Synopsis:
A conscience-stricken German officer is given the patsy detail of looking after the security of the Kaiser in exile in Holland, ostensibly because he is important to the Reich, though really to flush out royalist reactionaries. Meanwhile a Jewish British agent masquerading as a housemaid at the Kaiser's residence bides her time, keeping her Lebel well oiled.
Review:
This fashionable piece of WW2 arcana operates in a similarly alternate reality to films like Where Eagles Dare, one where the Kaiser is cuddly old rogue, as anti-semitic as the next man but one who doesn't like the details discussed at the dinner table; where the only conceivable reason for invading the Netherlands can have been to join up with him; and in which a Dutch-Jewish maidservant under strict scrutiny from her employers allows herself a fling with the one man who can shoot her on the spot, presumably because she is an unerring judge of character. That said, it gets up a reasonable head of steam in the second half.