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Rating:  - It's only in that moment that I've lived...
Kjell Grede's "Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg" is a noble but ultimately flawed effort. The story focuses on the efforts of Raoul Wallenberg to save Jews in Budapest during WWII's final days. Although he comes from one of Sweden's wealthiest families, there's nothing outstanding about Raoul. He's an ordinary guy with ordinary talents who hasn't done anything remarkable; as the film begins, he's an importer of luxury foods. But on a train trip, he happens to see Jewish corpses being tossed out of a death camp-bound freight car, and a father, who jumped out of the car to be with his dead son, shot and killed. This experience changes Raoul's life. As he tells the skeptical committee considering him for relief work, it's only in that moment that he feels he's ever actually lived.
Grede's film focuses on the very last days of Wallenberg's Hungarian mission: the exhausting scramble to bribe German and Hungarian officials, racing against the clock to try to save the Jewish ghetto, a dramatic standoff with a Hungarian fascist, despair alternating with hope, and finally Wallenberg's mysterious disappearance into the Soviet Union.
The best moments of the film are when Stellan Skarsgard (Wallenberg) and Katharina Thalberg (Marja) are on-screen. Thalberg is especially good as the Jewish woman whose children have been killed and who refuses to wear anything but a man's overcoat because, when the Germans come to kill her, she wants them to see her naked, as a real person rather than a statistic. Skarsgard, whose acting style is low-key anyway, plays Wallenberg with a subdued intensity that seems just right.
But ultimately, neither Skarsgard nor Thalberg can save the film. The writing tends at times to be melodramatic--ruining, for example, the final confrontation between Wallenberg and the Hungarian fascist. There's too little exposure of Wallenberg's interior, so his motives for risking life and limb to save Jews remain a bit cloudy (despite the "It's only in that moment that I've lived" scene).
Still, the film is worth seeing. It highlights the remarkable efforts of Wallenberg, and it underscores the fact--so easy to forget in our rather cynical age--that every life, no matter how "insignificant," is worth superhuman efforts to save.
Rating:  - foreign version of Schindler's List
Excellent story with graphic images that put you in Wallenberg's shoes. Incredible man. Incredible story. Must see film for Third Reich buffs.
Rating: - A bit confusing...
This movie may be a bit confusing to someone (like me) who does not know the history of Raoul Wallenberg. However, the movie improves upon a second viewing.
Rating:  - Didn't Get it
Your asking me to review a movie I still have not received. When I get it, I can review it then.
Rating:  - Shindler's List is King!
Good Evening Mr. Wallenberg has a great premise, but horrible filmmaking. The special effects are cheesy - there's no blood when the people are shot, which is totally bogus. Also, the copy that I received (which is being sold as authentic) is a cheap reproduction of a VHS tape (so it appears). The sound is horrible. The image is pixelated, and it freezes when you try to rewind it. This movie sucks a big doo-doo man! Don't ever, ever, ever in your life compare it to the likes of Steven Spielberg's 'Shindler's List'.
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