Escape from Germany

I got a big kick out of this and qualifiedly recommend it over the streams of crappy films to be found on Freevee, Netflix, and Tubi. However it has to be said that a really interesting story has been poorly served by a somewhat careless script and intermittently inspired direction. The acting is all over the place. However if you can't get past all that you may be missing something fun and even important.

Mormons (LDS: Latter Day Saints) are an evangelical sect and LDS teenagers are sent abroad on a missionary year to proselytize while living with local Mormons. There have to be many amazing stories of culture shock and personal development, but this film somehow doesn't convey that, in spite of the fact that it's set in Nazi Germany in 1939.

Shortly before the German invasion of Poland, the president of the European LDS organization has a premonition that war is about to start and, despite the denials of the U. S. Embassy, orders the German mission to close and repatriate its missionaries. Chaos ensues since German Mormons are being drafted, the Nazis are requisitioning transportation and food for the military, and neighboring countries begin closing their borders. Mission personnel struggle to leave behind some kind of church structure, convince at-risk parishioners to leave the country, and account for nearly thirty young missionaries who are stranded somewhere in Germany. One young missionary, Norm Seibold (Paul Wuthrich), is given some cash and sent to go find the boys and help them out. Meanwhile the mission personnel try to escape the Kafkaesque Nazi maze. Inspiration, determination, and faith struggle against bureaucracy and inhumanity in the kind of story Hollywood can't seem to tell except as a children's movie.

The writing was drab and stiff. The idea of 'Show Don't Tell' falls flat. The script could have used another 3-4 full revisions before going to production. So many dialogue elements could have been cleaned up. The acting was horrific and hard to stomach. The protagonist's constant 'smoldering' looks and dry delivery was nauseating. I laughed out loud on a few parts only to realize they were not meant to be funny.

I understand it is low budget and for a specific audience but this one was a hard pill to swallow.

2/3 of the movie was unbearable. The latter half of the 3rd act was redeeming and interesting. I enjoyed the end credits and the stories about the real people.

I appreciate the emotion and action packed film. I felt helpless when seeing the Nazi soldiers. I am glad having to witness little violence. I take 2 stars away because it is able to touch on the deprivation and mental terror toward the Jews only briefly. It has a brief quaint meeting between children which adds stars. It is a tribute to anyone who has been witness to the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit fulfills the mission. They know the danger and were given resilience. I know of stories like this and would like to have more available. I did not think the Mormon faith was on display too much.

With so few original and new stories being produced right now, it's refreshing to have something like this come along.

I suspect those that don't like this movie are either anti films with a Christian theme, anti Mormon, or honestly just don't know much about film.

Escape from Germany is beautifully filmed, and, frankly, the writing, directing and acting is better than most Faith-based films. (The Chosen, of course, being the Gold Standard.)

Regardless of whether you consider yourself a person of faith, or belong to any particular religion, I don't think you'll regret watching this wonderful Family Film.

This is not a bad movie and most of the english speaking world probably doesn't even notice that most of the acteurs in this movie that trie to speak German have terrible translated scripts. You could say that it is normal to have americans with poor german accents but even the Germans are not able to pronaunce a normal scentance. All the german soldiers behave like stereo type Nazis, like a loony toons cartoon from the '50. Sadly the movie leans in too much on to mormon faith with makes it monotonous. Given that the production quality is so high and the acteurs are pretty good this movie had more potentionel.