Schindler's List...Sorry, it's a little shaky right now.
REVIEW OF SCHINDLER'S LIST
This film is one of epic proportions, telling the story of war profiteer Oskar Schindler. Although the film is touch and go from excessive usage of melodrama, the film stands out as a fantastic effort from most everyone involved At first driven by a lust for wealth and women, Schindler begins to see first hand the atrocities that fellow Nazis are committing in concentration camps. This is one of the most emotionally driven films I have ever seen, although sometimes it's emotional to the point of ludicrousness. Liam Neeson's Schindler undergoes a character development so ingenious and profound that I can rank his performance as one of the greatest in film history. In fact, I would not be too bold in saying that it's his performance (for the most part) that keeps this film from drowning in its soup of false emotions and melodramatic direction.
The film opens in Karkow, Poland in 1939. the Nazis have just taken it and war begins. A handsome and charasmatic Oskar Schindler makes friends with some of the higher-ranking officers in German-occupied Poland. A Nazi party member, Schindler has come for one purpose: to make money. Making contact with the Jewish black market through Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) Schindler reopens the DEF, an enamelware plant. Through his Nazi sources, Schindler runs the plant through Jewish labor ("cheaper than Poles"). Run by Stern, the plant soom becomes a sort of safe haven from the dangers faced from the Nazis. Soon, all the Jews in Krakow are relocated to a concentration camp run by a brutal and sadistic Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). Schindler befriends Goeth and is allowed to run the plant from Goeth's camp, minus the accountant Stern. As the war wanes on, Schindler changes. At first, he hires Jews because they're cheap. Soon, he's feeding them out of his pocket, and hiring some to get them out of danger. As he begins to see the murders committed upon not Jews, but to fellow human beings, we feel Schindler's heart break and thaw. Where Schindler originally saw profit, he now sees a chance to help. Soon Schindler begins to spend millions bribing German officials to keep "his" Jews alive in his camp, which is eventually opened in Brinnlitz, Czechoslovakia. The conclusion of the film is one of the most brutally emotional ever.
To be succinct, if you haven't seen this film, I advise you to. If you've seen it before, I recommend seeing it again. I see something in the film each time I watch. Spielberg shows his talent at telling grandiose stories while still maintaining a watchful eye over individual characters and, although he sometimes goes over the top in his emotional portrayals, there is something in there that shows his viewers that there is a talent at work. Something we once saw in films such as "E.T."