Vashirdfel
Simply A Masterpiece
Kailansorac
Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
madeleig
Swing Kids is a movie that brilliantly highlights the Hitlerjugend organization, as well as the Swing Youth and overall problems of the Nazi generation. The movie, where it does go slow at some parts, does captivate the audience with action and drama. The movie is filled with accurate historical information. The uniforms worn in the HJ are accurate to what the actual members of the HJ wore. There was propaganda scattered throughout the movie that was actually used to promote Hitler and the Nazis. The portrayal of the Swing Youth (or Swing Kids, as stated in this movie) were mostly accurate. The Hitler Youth was shown as it should be shown, not glorified. The members of the Hitler Youth were shown doing a lot of exercise, and they were basically being spoon fed false information about the evils of Jews. This movie is also good because it strays away from the "Jew in a concentration camp" trope that so many World War II stories have. Not to say that trope is bad, it is obviously very important in history, but learning about other parts of World War II are important too. The movie embodies a different perspective of World War II, that of a group of kids in an illegal street gang, dedicated to not becoming like the rest of the Nazis. Overall, I think this movie is very good, it kept me captivated most of the time. The only reason I knocked it down a star is because it goes slowly at some parts. I definitely recommend this movie!
Mark M
DO NOT BOTHER! Horrible acting and average dancing. Forget it I just couldn't get into it when Germany was starving like my home country England. Rotten as I said besides your toenails need clipping don't waste the 90 minutes or so of your life! Furthermore, the story-line was thin and all over the place and the acting did not make me like any of the characters - The acting was over the top and it felt like Happy Days or the movie Greese with swastikas! Sad as the director Thomas Carter, tried but the cast choice was very strange. Willie is there and as Peter is driven away by the police he loudly screams "Swing Heil!" over and over again, which is very silly and pathetic. Evey - she was the worst actor and very wooden. SAY NO!
mklaene-946-735621
Given that the film is set in period immediately proceeding WWII Nazi Germany, I think it probably shows how things were. People always wonder how a developed nation like Germany could fall into Nazi-ism. This film clearly shows how that could happen anywhere. All of the characters are well played. The dancing and music are almost worth watching the captivating film by themselves. Robert Sean Leonard (who I knew primarily from 'House'), Noah Wyle, and Christian Bale give strong performances. I would recommend this to any who want to understand history and what can happen if the people ignore the political direction of their leaders. The problem will not just go away!
bkoganbing
I do love swing music and love the music and artists from the era. So did my parents who were contemporary with it. But they had the good fortune to love it in the USA. It was a dangerous thing to like Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and most of all Arthur Shawronsky who the authorities did know was Artie Shaw. But these squares were the Gestapo and Swing Kids is about the youth who loved American swing music at considerable cost.Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, Frank Whaley are three friends who are into American swing at a time in their country when such "jungle" music was Verboten. Swing Kids is the story about how all three were dealing with the growing strangulation of culture. One of the opening scenes takes place at a forbidden swing club where the kids are cutting a rug to Benny Goodman when word comes the authorities are near. Without a beat the band turns into a typical German Oompah band, the kind of music Herr Schicklgruber deemed acceptable to German youth.Which was being swallowed up by the Hitler Youth and the social pressures to join are enormous. Something that we in this country cannot fathom. I'm not a big fan of the current Pope, but about the only thing I'll give Benedict XVI a pass on was joining the Hitler Youth. At a certain point the wiggle room got less and less. Barbara Hershey as Leonard's mother gives a good performance as a woman keeping company with a Gestapo official for a little more comfort. Her husband and Leonard and David Tom's father had been arrested by the Gestapo a few years back and died as a result of their custody. The Gestapo official is played by an unbilled Kenneth Branagh who took no billing for his part deliberately.Swing Kids has a timely lesson for today if some in federal authority will care to learn it. The fundamentalist Moslems just as the Nazis hate our decadent culture. The answer is keep importing it into places like Iran by the cargo ship load. Don't bomb them to death, just send them our music and films.By the way our own fundamentalist Christians hated that music as they hate the music of today. Something about authoritarianism of whatever stripe just hates contemporary culture, whatever it is at the time.Swing Kids is a valuable lesson about freedom of expression wrapped up in a good entertaining package.
