MovieChat Forums > American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally (2021) Discussion > Mediocre movie but interesting for the h...

Mediocre movie but interesting for the history

posted 4 years ago by PrimeMinisterX (8801)
7 replies | jump to latest

I ran across this one at Redbox the other day and decided to check it out.

The RT score is only 15%. That's not representative of the quality of the movie, in my opinion. Ultimately it's a mediocre film, neither particularly good nor particularly bad. For a direct-to-video release, it's probably above-average.

A few positives did stand out.

First, though he's now in his 80s, one thing I can say is that Al Pacino is still an energetic performer. He's good in the film, and while he's clearly getting older, he doesn't seem "old."

Also, the leading lady is in her 50s but still looks pretty good. She looks a little artificial and her face doesn't move as much as it seems like it should, but still, she's like 54 or something. If my wife looks that good in her mid-50s I'll rejoice.

Probably the highlight for me though was learning something about history that I wasn't aware of, which is that this lady even existed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Gillars

Never heard of Axis Sally before.

Overall, 6/10. It was fine.

P.S. I noticed that "Redbox Entertainment" was in the opening credits and did some reading, and apparently they are now acquiring and distributing films under their own label.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Thanks for the review.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8801) 4 years ago

I'll also mention that I felt the film was a little too sympathetic to Axis Sally, especially when I suspect that many of the details that make the audience sympathize with her were manufactured for the movie. It does make me wonder if the filmmakers had some kind of agenda.

As I said, it's an OK movie. Not particularly good or bad. It's not a terrible way to kill an hour and 48 minutes, but only because of some of the performances and the fact that it delves into some history that I suspect most people are not at all familiar with.

[–] DarkHorse (297) 4 years ago

Never heard of her before either. I read her Wikipedia page and she sounds more like someone who took their chances travelling and getting any kind of work they could finally ending up in Germany. I can imagine they would try and make her appear a victim or sympathetic.

I would have been more interested in seeing her whole life more than the court case against.her.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8801) 4 years ago

Mild spoiler alert, if you care, but to respond:

The movie makes it out as if she was stupid to get involved with the Reich's war effort in the first place but that she didn't at first really understand the full extent of what she was doing, and by the time she did understand it and wanted out, it was too late. By then it was basically go along with the Reich's plans or die, and oh by the way, Goebbels was also raping her pretty regularly.

You said you read the Wiki entry. There's nothing in there about her life being threatened or about being terrorized by Joseph Goebbels. Maybe the filmmakers knew something about the history that I don't know, but I suspect a lot of those details were made up for the movie.

A movie of her life would've been interesting, but this film has the veneer of a relatively low-budget affair. There are only a handful of principal actors and only a handful of locations/sets. I don't think they had the money to convincingly do a full biopic and probably half of the money that they did have went to Al Pacino.

[–] DarkHorse (297) 4 years ago

I just read some more articles about her and still no rape. Given her position she would have received minor star treatment from the Nazis and I didn't read anything about her even being a darling of Goebells. Chances are she may have only ever seen him from afar at best.

Overall the film sounds like a case of "men are bad, Nazis are evil and women are victims".

I'm wondering how Pacino got roped into it!

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8801) 4 years ago

There are some positive male characters in the film, but for whatever reason, it does increasingly seem like the filmmakers manufactured details to paint her in a more sympathetic light. Was this simply for dramatic purposes or were they trying to make some political or moral point? I guess we have no way of knowing.

It's interesting you ask about Al Pacino because it was a conversation about him that lead me to the film. A friend and I were talking and he said he had read something where Pacino had said that he likes to just stay busy and keep working. He simply likes acting and wants to keep doing it. This lead me to look up his filmography and I saw he had this movie coming out. I looked up the trailer and thought it looked like a made-for-TV movie and was surprised to see that Pacino was in it. When it appeared at Redbox this week I grabbed it immediately.

Pacino is now 81 and he's made a lot of films over the last 10 years that I had never even heard of until I looked him up on IMDB. I suspect that as he continues to age he'll sadly be in less and less demand from producers. Perhaps then if he wants to keep working that means we'll see him in more and more projects like this one.

To be clear, I didn't hate the movie. I thought it was worth watching for the reasons I've previously stated. But at the same time it's clear that with the right budget and talent behind the camera, the story of Axis Sally could be turned into a much better film than this one.

[–] [email protected] (2035) 7 months ago

In the last 14 years, he did the ff films:

Paterno
Phil Spectre
You Don't Know Jack
The Irishman
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

And I know some would disagree but I also liked the ff films he did:

The Pirates of Somalia
House of Gucci

For an 84 year old, a pretty good run. Pacino even in the 70s took risky films that sometimes flopped (Cruising) or low budget films that are underrated (Scarecrow), he hasn't changed his tune.

I don't think this film is about men bad vs women good, because her 2 lawyers and all Americans are shown positively. All the nazis are shown negatively. Sally in between but leans negatively, like her tales are all that, just tales or a narcissist who realized she chose the wrong side too late in the game.

The film was OK, not bad nor very good.