13 Minutes

Although director Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) and co-writer Fred Breinersdorfer (Sophie Scholl: the Final Days) know the period well, this is a disappointingly superficial account of Georg Elser's attempt to blow up Hitler in Munich in November 1939. The production values are impeccable and Christian Friedel bears a resemblance to the 36-year-old carpenter, who was pitilessly tortured by the Gestapo in its bid to determine whether he was a lone assassin or part of a Communist conspiracy. Yet, rather than exploring Elser's motives, far too much time is devoted to his romance with a battered farmer's wife. And a hallucinatory truth-serum sequence feels as much a miscalculation as not dwelling in depth on the practical preparations for the attack. Also glaringly missing is the reason why Elser was allowed to survive in Dachau until the last weeks of the Second World War. This compelling moment in history really deserves a more insightful reconstruction.