Look Who's Back (2015)

“Do I look like a criminal?”

“You look like Adolf Hitler.”

“Exactly.”

The subject of Hitler and the Nazis is still a touchy subject to speak/write about after over seventy years (well, I see it as a touchy subject). Dictator and followers created the worst crime in human history. They brought so much devastation and destruction to Europe that still resonates in today’s modern world. There is nothing funny about Hitler. Well I guess, in hind sight, you could say his ideology and the way he looked at the world were idiotic funny. Some movies and other forms of media have throughout the decades since World War II have tried to make Hitler, the man, into comic farce. One such movie to make Hitler into a comic farce and his idiotic views has been Look Who’s Back.

            The story begins with Adolph Hitler waking up in modern Germany. He is confused about how he got to where he is and even where in Germany he is. He is dressed in his military uniform but some of the sections of uniform are burned. Hitler walks around Berlin asking people where the Reich is and he gets so answer. Tourists take pictures with him thinking he is an actor. The only person who believes his story is a newspaper stand owner.

            Back at the site where Hitler came back, a freelance reporter/videographer named Fabian has been trying to film a story about underprivileged kids who have found hope through football (soccer for us here in America). He happens to get Hitler rising up and walking away on film but he does not realize it until sometime later. Fabian brought the story of the kids to his boss and the boss fired him because Fabian’s stories are nothing interesting. Fabian sits at home at the table looking over his footage of the kids and his mother looks over his shoulder at the footage. She points out the man in the background that looks like Hitler. He realizes that could be a story.

            Fabian tracks down Hitler to the newspaper stand. He believes, like everyone else in the movie, that this is just a guy playing Hitler not the real deal. Fabian takes this Hitler through Germany and films him speaking to actual real people. A lot of the people they speak to and their issues with Germany echo the issues the people of Hitler’s Germany had.

            After some deals with the TV company he used to work for, Hitler gets some airtime on a risqué but popular comedy show. Hitler goes off track and gives a speech like the kind he would have made back in 1945. At first the crowd thinks he is a joke and laughs but then he gets serious and they get serious. Hitler becomes a big success for the station and even writes his own book.

            Fabian comes to realize through talking to Hitler that the guy could actually be the real deal. He goes back to the site where he had filmed the kids and finds a sign that indicates it was once the site of Hitler’s bunker. Fabian tries to tell everyone that the guy is the real thing and that he is dangerous but no one takes him seriously.

            Look Who’s Back was very interesting and also a bit terrifying. It was interesting in the idea of what if the real Adolph Hitler came back to today’s modern world. What would he think? What would he do? How would the people of our modern world react? And it was terrifying in that Germany seems to be having the same issues the German people of 1933 had when Hitler came to power: there was a struggle for jobs, immigrants were/are coming in and taking jobs, they are not happy with their current government at all, etc. and the modern people were agreeing to Hitler’s policies and ideas that he had in 1933 and beyond! The actor who played Hitler and the film crew really did go to certain places throughout Germany and interviewed actual German citizens. The actor playing Hitler improvised but the answers by the people were real and they were agreeing with the mad man’s policies. That was outrageously terrifying in so many ways. I kept thinking, “Has Germany learned nothing?” I think Look Who’s Back is definite viewing. It does get a little dragged out in the middle and at the end it does become a little more serious which kind of brings it down but overall Look Who’s Back is an excellent movie that I definitely suggest seeing. It is currently available to view on Netflix.