Clive Owen plays Max, a loose, carefree, and cowardly playboy who is caught by Nazis along with his gay partner and shipped off to the Dachau concentration camp to do hard labor. He pretends to be in the yellow star unit meaning that he is Jewish instead of the pink triangle unit meaning that he is gay. But he meets a member of the pink triangle named Horst who he befriends and begins developing feelings for as they work day after day moving rocks from one place to another. The film is based on a play of the same name that gained much critical acclaim and won many awards. One viewer may realize this very quickly upon watching this movie as the film does feel quite staged. film works as a message film, the message being "be yourself". The film nails this concept pretty much solidly. Unfortunately, there are some distractingly bad flaws here. As I mentioned earlier, the film is incredibly staged. The film doesn't feel like reality. There are scenes that are so stage like in execution, it almost incites an unintentional laugh. There's even a scene of violence that feels extremely prepared and strangely very dance like. It's really too bad because there are some fantastic scenes herein. There is an orgy scene early in the film that is full of erotic passion and beauty. There are some harrowing scenes that take place on the train that are pretty disturbing. And there is an early scene involving Mick Jagger that is pretty interesting. Overall, even though it's interesting, moving and well acted, it's a poor film. There are some undeniably powerful scenes, but there isn't enough there for me. I recommend it if it sounds interesting to you. Just be prepared for some really sloppy directing.
