42 Ways to Kill Hitler

introduction in a fight who seems, in many moments, Utopian. men looking the best manner to destroy the evil. analysis, reconstruction of the details, verdicts. not the most inspire rhythm to present the story. but one of documentaries who transforms the image of the period. because it presents not exactly cases but an idea. because the many Walkiria Operations are proofs of courage, love for country, heroism. because it is not exactly a story about Hitler but about movements against dictatorship in many other countries. it is one of films who gives color to a sketch. well made, precise, clear and smart, it is a good portrait of a period and useful remember for unknown heroes.

It isn't in the least surprising to find out that there were forty-two attempts to kill Hitler. The only surprise is that there weren't more. As John D. Gresham (a weapons and assault expert) points out, if someone is going to be a professional bad guy all his life, this is expected.

Gresham is only one of the speakers. As expected in this type of documentary, the film is littered with interesting speakers: historians, writers, military experts and so on. All provide interesting viewpoints but what really brings the film to life is the re-creation of the attempts. Even though from the offset you know that all the assassination attempts failed, while watching you tend to keep forgetting that and you say things like "This attempt looks so good. I wonder if it's going to succeed." I think the excitement created by these re-creations is the film's strongest point. You half expect the narrator to suddenly say that one of the attempts succeeded.

The negative is the little time that some of the attempts are given. Before you even know it, you find yourself in attempt 20 and this can make the film feel a bit rushed at times. You wonder if you're missing out on important information. One assumes this happened for a number of reasons. 1) This was originally shown on television so it must have had some time constraints. 2) There are attempts on which there isn't much to say because there isn't much information available or simply because the attempts were not very good or very well planned.

This is a good film. It makes you wonder whether history would have been different if one of those many attempts had succeeded. After watching this you will conclude one thing; that Hitler was a very lucky man. Some of the attempts are truly amazing and extremely well planned by very skilled individuals and it's nothing short of a miracle that Hitler survived all of them.

Truth be told, this documentary gives us only a few of the plots to kill Hitler, but most of those plots are not well known. Worth a look.