13 Minutes

One man's failed effort to assassinate Adolf Hitler (and other Nazi leaders) in the early days of World War II is dramatized here through an interrogation juxtaposed with flashbacks to the past. Filmmaker Oliver Hirschbiegel's 13 Minutes stars Christian Friedel as Georg Elser, who sought to kill the Führer with a precisely-timed bomb during the latter's annual speech in a Munich beer hall on November 8, 1939. Caught at the Swiss border and transported back into Germany, Elser learned that Hitler had escaped the explosion by the titular 13 minutes. The tale is told in fragmented fashion, with Elser first shown planting the bomb and then being dragged in for questioning. His claim that he acted alone is unacceptable to Hitler, who demands that interrogators prove he was part of a larger conspiracy. As Elser is tortured, flashbacks reveal the factors that led up to his decision to decapitate the Nazi regime—a combination of an unhappy personal life and depression over increasingly oppressive Nazi measures in his hometown. Overall, Hirschbiegel's docu-drama style is perhaps a bit too slick, but he is quite faithful to the historical record, and his film succeeds in encouraging greater public awareness of Elser's heroic gesture. Recommended. (F. Swietek)