Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

amdew717 I watched this in two stages: first half, late at night; second half the following evening. I love historical stories set in Europe during WWII. I was intrigued by the first part, even though it was quite disturbing, however, the second part between the two principles, the real heart of the story, just left me completely cold. I cared nothing for either of them. I don't even know what to say about Max, but if I did, there wouldn't be much good in it. Horst was just downright annoying and nag. I found their verbal sexual interaction boring and pretentious; I was sorry it was repeated later in the film. The action was so staid in this ridiculous situation they were in, that I was relieved when one of them was killed. Maybe you're supposed to feel that way. I don't doubt that such situations really happened, senseless as the Nazis were, but I just don't think it made for interesting story telling. Honestly, the only character I felt anything for was Rudy; I was sorry he died so early on. Just my opinion.

goatyhead I love historical dramas. This subject matter is very rarely talked about. Jews, poles, gypsies and other undesirables were all brutally exterminated. Homosexuals are very rarely talked about. So this subject matter seemed very interesting. From the start the movie seemed like it was going to be a musical, and i almost turned it off. Then it seemed to try to be a rip off of "party Monsters" but set in pre ww II Germany. The action seemed to get better and the story line started to develop. However the acting and the plot just falls apart, into something predictable and bland. The whole movie seems like someone who wrote a high school play was suddenly given a big movie budget but decided to keep it in a play format.

carl-lander I was an extra in this film, when I was 11 or 12 years old. I'm 24 now, but at the time I was a member of a local casting agency and me and another friend Lee found ourselves as part of the small group of children that had to paddle about in the water in the scene where the soldiers and prisoners march by. From what I recall it was a days worth of filming and I had to have my step cut out from my hair (it was the style back then!)but it was a really interesting experience. I remember the day being boiling hot but being treated really nicely by the production staff. It makes me laugh now at how blaze I was that this film starred the talents of Sir Ian McKellen and Clive Owen amongst others, but as an 11 year old I didn't know who they were! I was disappointed not to be credited at the end, that would have really proved to my friends that I have been in a film (albeit a very very small blink and you miss it moment!).

bkoganbing No person who is knowledgeable about the Holocaust can ever claim that without seeing Bent. The play which opened in 1979 in London is about those all too forgotten victims of the Holocaust, the gay people of Europe. On Broadway the lead role that Clive Owen plays was essayed by Richard Gere for the run of 241 performances in the 1979-1980 season. Doing his original role from the London production as Uncle Freddie is Sir Ian McKellan.For those who think that homosexuality doesn't have an inherited element in it, Bent certainly gives lie to that. During the Weimar Republic years Germany had a thriving gay if somewhat discreet scene. After the Night of the Long Knives with the SA purge in 1934, gays were systematically rounded up for a final solution and Hitler certainly did a thorough job of it. Today the German Federal Republic has once again a thriving gay scene. Those recessive genes are popping out in full force.Bent does begin right at the Night of the Long Knives where Ernst Roehm was killed and anyone whoever knew of him and his not so discreet gay lifestyle was done in. The long knives of Himmler's SS come calling that night on Clive Owen and his boyfriend Brian Webber because they've picked up a pretty young man who used to trick with Roehm. He dies quite gruesomely, but they escape.Owen seeks aid from an old gay man who's called Uncle Freddie played by Ian McKellan who gives him some help, but whom Owen doesn't take some good advice from. McKellan has been very much deep in the closet, it's what's made him survive a society where homophobia is not just approved, but is now the law of the land.After this the scene cuts to a train to Dachau and Dachau itself where Owen and Webber are taken. Webber doesn't survive the trip, that scene is something I don't want to reveal. Owen decides that he'll take the Jewish star of David rather than a pink triangle, in the Dachau pecking order gay is worse than Jewish. Just as Schindler's List showed the dehumanization of Jews, Bent shows the dehumanization of gay people. Only there was no Oskar Schindler to save some of them. In fact sexuality as a form of repression has not ever been better displayed on screen than in Bent.But Owen learns about gay pride from another prisoner, Lothaire Bluteau who wears the pink triangle in defiance. They find a connection and consummate that connection in the only way they can do it under the circumstances. Again a scene I can't reveal.This film should not be missed by any Gay/Lesbian/Bi-Sexual/Trangendered person on this planet. It shows better than anything else what we potentially face in the way of repression when we are dehumanized by law and societal mores. We cannot let that happen and we have to make sure it's stopped in the places it does happen in the world.And this review is dedicated to all the brothers and sisters who died back then. Here's hope for a better world for our next generation.