ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

John Johnson The movie starts with a violin and scenes of the Jewish ghetto. Jakob is one of many Jews in a German-controlled, Polish ghetto. While walking home one night he is sent by a guard to headquarters. There he hears a brief broadcast that Russian troops are doing well against the Germans. The next day, in a desperate attempt to save his friend from committing a rash act and stealing potatoes, he tells him of the Russian advance. He twists the story and it soon is believed that he possess a radio. In order to protect his exaggeration, he continues to tell more and more lies by pretending he hears them on the radio. His lies have a huge impact on camp, but he eventually needs to tell the truth to his friend Kowalski, who kills himself out of despair for living another day in the ghetto. The Jakob's lie remains largely undiscovered, his street is eventually deported to their presumed death.At the beginning of watching the movie I was quite sick of seeing another German movie about WW2. However this movie was amazing. I like how it toys with the perception of truth. Plenty of truths are told that are harmful, and lies are told that are good. Furthermore, truth is merely the acceptance of truth and is useful in so far as it accomplishes an act. Though Jakob may never had possessed a radio, his initial statements were disbelieved. The same way a cloud is out of water, though it is really out of tiny drops of frozen water. Though the obvious interpretation is that life in the ghetto was terrible, and that Jakob's lives were pure hearted, it's also a statement on underlying scientific notions that we cannot legitimately achieve through personal work what we can do together. That notion is very clear for an East German movie. I enjoyed the way the film cut to flashbacks to explain who characters were. It's a short, concise and brilliant method of exposition. The relationships were very well-developed. Rosa and Mischa's courtship was handled well. Although it's obviously sincere, no reasonable parent would approve of such a love in the ghetto. Though abuses are shown, such as when Herschel Schtamm is killed after investigating a boxcar. Much of the movie focuses on the psychological damage forced by isolation, poverty, and a general racism. The movie knows that abuses are known, it's the stories of relationships that aren't as things like letters and radio were banned. For example, Uncle Jakob's care for his niece, and the niece herself, show a compassion. The explanation of his lamp helps to put emphasis on the love of families that was destroyed, frankly by any organized government and especially that of the 3rd Reich.

medena_20 This is an interesting film. However, I must say that I was very disappointed at the end. I expected something totally different. First, I thought it would be a comedy. But soon I found out that this was not the case. The film is about Jacob, an old Jewish man. He lies throughout the movie that he has a Radio, just to keep the hopes up of the people around him. Everyday he tells the people around him that the Russians are moving closer and that soon they will be free from the Nazis. As the movie goes on things get more complicated and at the end he decides to tell the truth, but no one believes him. Even though he had good intentions, Jacob did not achieve his objective. All he did is cause more problems in the ghetto.

davorka46 This movie is a story full of lies that brought more hope to the Jews living in the Ghetto. Jakob was the one being outside after curfew and he had to report to the Police, and after walking into the station he heard some news on the Radio. He thought that it was good news that the Russians were coming closer. He could not m=keep that to himself so he went and told this to one of his friends who was not supposed to say anything. After a short while the whole Ghetto was talking about those news. Jakob saw that everybody was feeling much better so he continued to tell lies about the news. This is a movie that gets better and better as it moves along. It also gives hope to the Jewish people in the Ghetto and Jakob was having good intentions but it just complicated itself more and more.

David Ecklein One of the legacies of the late GDR (East Germany) is a treasure-trove of cultural productions, much of which has been inaccessible to us. An exception is the 1974 DEFA (GDR successor to pre-1945 Ufa Film Studio) production "Jacob the Liar", which enjoyed a brief exposure in the US in the late '70s, even being nominated for an Academy Award. If you missed it, this is your chance to have it, beautifully transferred to DVD (also another justification for splurging on a DVD player, if you haven't already). Although it can be viewed without, the subtitles (your choice of language)are well-worded and legible."Jacob" centers on a man inadvertently finding himself a focus of hope among the doomed in a Polish ghetto. Circumstances have him reluctantly pretending to possess a forbidden radio, which leads to dramatic (and comedic) situations, and even raises moral questions and insights about truth and responsibility in such an adverse context. Billed as a tragic comedy, the acting and pacing of the story are equal to the serious nature of the subject.Director Frank Beyer's "Jacob" should not be confused with the 1999 Hollywood remake starring the talented (but often glib and facetious) Robin Williams. This Columbia distribution is a sort of roadrunner-cartoon version trying to be profound. It has the frantic pacing and excessive gratuitous violence evidently presumed necessary to put it over. If you must have a Holocaust-era drama that can bear watching more than once, get the real McCoy.