No director has more fascinating stories to tell than Werner Herzog. This one is about a Jewish blacksmith who finds his way from his village in Poland into a German propaganda show at a Berlin theatre which features a grim but locally beloved hypnotist, who claims he has seen into the future of Germany. The year is 1932, Hitler has yet to come to power.
For about fifty minutes, Herzog is able to keep the viewer in his/her seat. He stages a very eccentric show which at times allows for audience participation. During a hypnotism scene, Herzog has chosen the camera angle to be a P.O.V. of the volunteer. Tim Roth faces the camera, and as he starts to work his magic, it is us the viewers who are being hypnotized. But while the show goes on, the spectacle disappears. Invincible looses direction and starts becoming draggy quite quickly. Tim Roth's character is presented to us with so much flair and presentation that we are led to believe that the story is heading more in his direction, but it doesn't. Invincible might have worked better if the movie was about him. The last section of the film is clunky and overlong, and it feels like another movie. When looked at in its entirety, Invincible is almost a docu/drama. Some parts are very interesting but, it lacks important cinematic ingredients; the most important of which is structure.
Invincible could use a major reworking. It is clumsy in direction, unable to generate much emotion, and does not have much to say. This is NOT one of Herzog's more impressive works
