The Boys from Brazil

A thriller set in the 1970s, about the postwar hunt for Nazis. Ezra Lieberman is an old Nazi hunter. His files are running out and nobody takes him seriously. A call comes from Paraguay: a young man has listened in on a meeting held by Josef Mengele. The plan: ninety-four men in different countries are to be killed. All are sixty-five, all are civil servants, and each has an adopted son. The idea is why those ninety-four are targets and who the children are. The narrative opens it like an investigation. The source is Ira Levin's novel. What is interesting is the exchange of parts between two actors: Gregory Peck plays Mengele against his usual image as a good man, and Laurence Olivier plays the Nazi hunter. Their encounter at the end is the most cited passage. Olivier was Oscar-nominated. Franklin J. Schaffner directed. A solid example for anyone who likes 1970s political thrillers and conspiracy narratives. For a viewer looking for scientific realism, the idea the film rests on belongs to its period and looks too optimistic against what is known now.