A teenager finds out that an elderly neighbor was a Nazi and uses the information to blackmail him.

HUGE SPOILER ALERT!!! If you don't want to find out about a major plot point ahead of time, watch the movie before continuing on with this review.

Okay, so where was I? Oh yes. In the living room at Dog Acres, where the Barracuda and I had bribed the Dog Master to play a game of Hex Hex with us in return for getting to pick the movie to watch afterwards. The Dog Master asked what I was in the mood for, and I said, something light, maybe a musical.

So he picked this...hm. Anyway, it was good.

This movie is yet another film based on a Stephen King story (from Different Seasons) and, truthfully, although I've read just about everything King has written, I find his short stories to be eminently forgettable, as are nearly all of his novels. I certainly don't remember this one, although I did read the collection. So I can't compare the book to the movie.

As a movie, this was darn good, except for one major flaw (which I'll rant about later). Ian MacKellen plays an ex-Nazi who managed to escape Germany, came to this country and became a citizen in the 1950s...and who has lived quietly and unobtrusively til now. It's a bit hard to believe that this kid is the first person to connect his pictures from WWII with the person himself, but that's actually not so bad, my disbelief stayed floating in midair very nicely.

The actor who played the teen was not so good, but who could compare with MacKellen? He did okay, and looked the right age. Actually, (I just checked IMDB) he was the right age, he was 16 when this was made. So he's still got time to learn how to act...but he was fine. The real draw of this movie is the psychological tension between the two of them, and where it's going to go, and that was well done indeed, very enjoyable.

But here's the spoiler, and here's where the reality police have got to intrude: the big denoument, in the hospital, where the guy in the next bed JUST HAPPENS TO BE a Holocaust survivor who was at the camp run by MacKellen and recognizes him and blows the whistle on him? no, sorry, my disbelief hit the ground with a huge thud at that point. This was so unbelieveable and coincidental that it just made me yell out, NO WAY! (luckily I was at Dog Acres and not in a movie theater...).

So yes, it was a good movie and worth watching for the buildup...but that plot point just didn't work for me. I have no idea what they could have done instead, and I don't know (or care) what happened in the story...but it sure didn't work in this movie.

Worth seeing once for MacKellen's performance, but don't buy it.

Oh, and the cat gets away, at least in the scene with MacKellen. But it's almost oogie.