A Redenção: A História Real de Bonhoeffer

As a date married couple's night movie, it was fine. The imagery was marvelous. The casting was good; some even great.

But the actual story telling was pretty awful in that there were many points in the movie when we looked at each other with "what the heck?" expressions and later discussions. Too much was cued up and left hanging, or even made confusing to the point of unlikely or absurd. It's as if the screenwriter continually wrote himself into a corner, and then just jarringly jumped over an immense plot hole or critical detail, and into the next scene. You shouldn't need such a Deus ex Machina when you've got the real God in the story!

The biggest flaw, though, is that with actual well-documented history like Bonhoeffer's, the emotion should not have come from over-acting, pregnant pauses and close-up tears. It should come from the true story all by itself.

And that part, sorry to say, was mostly missing.

Well clarified the passion and resolve of B and the confessing church. Loved the flashback model, the cast was well selected, the film moved along well. Loved the portrayal of B's relationship with his brother Walter and the depth of family connection and love. Being that the plight of the Jewish people under Hitler was a central focus I was surprised there was no mention of B's twin sister being married to a Jewish man and moving to England. Well done over all. I shed tears and wish I will one day be as courageous as B if faced with such choices. Thanks for producing this film. I recommend it.

Having high hopes, I was disappointed in Bonhoeffer. The narrative was choppy, the pace was slow, and the plot felt disjointed. Plus, it was hard to understand the dialogue with the accents, I felt like I should've waited for it to come out on streaming and watched it at home with the captions on. However, the acting was good and the production values were excellent. I love the fact that more and more Christian-themed movies are being made today and wholeheartedly support Angel Studios, I just wish that the movies had better scripts and were more entertaining, beyond being primarily focused on inspiration.

I agree with other reviews that found two major faults with this movie.

AUTHOR. The movie tells us (in the scripts) that B wrote many many books about faith. Yet the movie itself never shows him writing or publishing or discussing any books. The most we see is B writing his thoughts in a journal.

ASSASSIN. Yes historically there were many failed plots to assassinate Hitler, and in fact the movie shows us such a plot. But there are no facts in the movie to show that B was ever arrested or charged with this. It's a very serious gap in the story.

BOTTOM LINE. I'm sorry, but I think B deserves a better script and a livelier story. The movie Valkarie with Tom Cruise (a non religious story) that depicts a failed assassination attempt on Hitler is a good example.

The Bonhoeffer movie could have used a lot more action to break up what were tedious conversations about faith in the face of evil.

Well-filmed and acted. However, the film spent an inordinate amount of time on Bonhoeffer's 1930 trip to New York and his supposed fascination with gospel music and jazz. In point of fact, his later prison letters reveal the lasting influence of the traditional Lutheran chorales and the hymns of Paul Gerhardt on his theology and piety. There was no mention whatsoever of his engagement to Maria von Wedemeyer (eighteen years his junior), with whom he exchanged dozens of letters during his imprisonment (1943-1945), and later published as 'Love Letters from Cell 92.' It was Maria's grandmother who funded the Confessing Church's seminary at Finkenwalde where Bonhoeffer championed a kind of 'new monasticism' for the seminarians-with traditional chorales and an ordered praying of the psalms. A plot line that wove Maria into the end of Bonhoeffer's life would have raised some compelling questions-such as, Why get engaged if the/your world is about to end? All that being said, it is good that a film of Bonhoeffer was produced, bringing his story of fighting for truth to a wider audience.