Rent Freaks vs. the Reich (2021)

Wonderful Felliniesque movie-making - Freaks vs. the Reich review by Alphaville

Four circus freaks are on the run from a six-fingered Nazi concert pianist. If that premise and the title make you think this is some cheap Italian rip-off, leave your preconceptions at the door. This is movie-making on the grand scale, full of magic moments, with huge sets, an unending stream of surprises and a no-holds-barred climax. Gorgeously filmed, operatic in scale. Whimsical, beguiling and often tragic as the band of four discover that their captured leader is on a train heading for a concentration camp. Sample scene: the electric (literally) Matilde can’t help but burn anyone who touches her, so it’s edge of seat stuff when a Nazi soldier decides to rape her. As a whole the film is probably a tad too long, but it remains a blast. Fellini would have been proud.

Great Fun, Comic Book Italian Mash-Up about a Circus in Rome in 1943 Nazi-filled Action Fantasy - Freaks vs. the Reich review by PV

The Guardian gave this 1 star and called it "a deluded blend of magical realism, gratuitous violence and sentimentality"', while the BFI stated: "a ludicrous circus fantasy filled with lavishly orchestrated carnage". Well considering the sort of dire tedious tickbox films these rags adore, I thought that was recommendation enough so rented it! If the Guardian hates it, the film is surely entertaining and worth a watch! And I was not wrong.

Yes, it is overlong and a tad meandering; BUT it has a budget to enable the special effects of superpowers to look decent ( usually disliked such scifi magic realism, but I see the writer of this has only 1 other movie credit, for an Italian film about a criminal with superpowers! So s/he obviously has a thing...)

HOORAH that it is not dubbed; instead it has automatic English subtitles so bravo for that! I hate dubbed foreign films.

The truly great actor Franz Rogowski stars - and I would watch a film about paint drying with him in it. The plot is basically 4 super-powered misfits have to evade the six-fingered leader of a Nazi Berlin circus (Franz Rogowski) . And it is BIG, bawdy (surprisingly so for a 15 cert) and an action-fantasy. which could have started life as a graphic novel. I hate Marvel films, but this is fun at least.

Some vague references to The Wizard of Oz are here too in what is a quest story really. They even mention Dorothy!

Maybe watch with BLOODSTORM (2012, and also called Nazis at the Centre of the Earth, so see Adolf Hitler ride a T-Rex in Antarctica. Errrr).

The difference is that this movie has a big budget, some famous actors (I think Claudio Santamaria is a big veteran Italian actor) and very VERy Italian, as it is OTT and has that visual comedy which in the UK has vanished mostly, but which survives in many Italian and other fori

Nice soundtrack too which includes CREEP by Radiohead and I think NOVEMBER RAIN by Guns N Roses too, oh and a Nazi Rubik's Cube and a smartphone tone in 1943 - but it has a timeslip theme too via the ringleader Nazi...

Just suspend belief, do not think too hard, hide your copy of The Guardian and go along for the ride! Great fun. 4 stars.