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Poster (c) Universal Pictures
Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is a German during World War II. All he cares about is money, and runs a business while the height of the Nazi regime in Poland is taking place. He realizes that he can save money on hiring Jews instead of Poles to work in his factory (since the Jews would be taken from the concentration camps, they would not really require much, if any, pay). After some pleading from his wife and his desire to hold onto his accountant, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kinglsey), Schindler decides to make a list of Jews to save from certain death to work in his factory.
Quite obviously, this movie will have different effects on different people, much like the recent Passion of the Christ did. Those who had relatives who were captured by the Nazis, or knew someone, or were alive at the time, or anything of the like, would be much more affected by this film than others. I found myself horrified by many of the atrocities brutally shown, especially ones done by Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). It's amazing, how you can be so affected by gruesomeness done to characters you know nothing about.
On a lesser side, I found many scenes to be unnecessary and uninteresting. They only added to the already obscenely long runtime. Also, the character of Goeth, when not brutalizing Jews, seemed to become perfectly normal and balanced. Goeth seemed duplicitous, and therefore somewhat unbelievable. Neeson was good, but Kingsley was excellent. One more thing that bothered me was the girl in the red dress. Filmed in almost all black-and-white, there's some sort of symbolism there, but there's no telling what it is.
Overall, Schindler's List is an important film, and a tough one to get through, but what you'll get out of it will differ from what others will.
Rated R for war violence and language.
Review Date: April 16, 2004