Apt Pupil

It's been a while since I last watched this, or read the book, but I still recall the palpable feeling of dread, of discomfort, of witnessing one young boy's descent into pure darkness...it's all still there.

Sir Ian McKellen is masterful as the Nazi doctor in hiding, and it's interesting looking back now that he's played a Holocaust survivor - Magneto in the X-Men movies - AND one of the depraved minds behind it - Kurt Dussander here. Then at the other end of that spectrum, it's kinda sad looking back on this and seeing how good Brad Renfro was, how good he could have been had he not died so young...

Anyway, it's a damn good movie that still holds up really well now, almost 30 years later.

High school student Todd Bowden (played by Brad Renfro) is an "apt pupil", who excels at just about every subject. After becoming obsessed with Nazi Germany, he suspects a man in his city (Ian McKellen) is a former death camp guard. Todd blackmails the man and they become friends... or so it appears. But who has power over who?

I really liked this film. I'm always wary of King movies, because so many directors have botched them. Bryan Singer ("X-Men") is not one of those directors, really capturing the crux of the story here and focusing on the Nazi elements. The imagery and symbolism wasn't overdone, yet not underplayed. I found every scene convincing (although I'm not sure how seeing a photo from the 1940s in Germany would make you suspect a man in America in the 1980s).

Aside from Ian McKellen (who is now best known as Magneto or perhaps his "Lord of the Rings" alter ego), the cast is just phenomenal. Joshua Jackson plays best friend Joey and David Schwimmer, whom I normally can't stand, plays the sexually ambiguous guidance counselor with a bad mustache. Even Elias Koteas (Casey Jones from "Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles") shows up as a homeless alcoholic, who really shines.

The tension in this picture is strong, as the bond between the two friends (or adversaries?) gets stronger. There are times where you don't know who's going to win the power struggle... and once the Israelis enter the scene, it gets even more complicated. You really don't want the Israeli police going after you (as we see in this film).

Anyway, this was a winner. It was in the favorites section of Family Video, and I can understand why. We had humor, drama and a touch of horror (no real romance, though -- maybe briefly). A more well-rounded picture would be hard to find for someone who likes movies off the beaten path... this film is unique.

"Apt Pupil" is well directed, with some interesting themes of power lust and evil feeding on itself, and great acting by Brad Renfro and Sir Ian McKellan, but I was put off by the very loose holds on reality. The plot alone is full of insane coincidences (a kid obsessed with the Holocaust just happens to bump into a Nazi war criminal, and that war criminal just happens to share a hospital room with one of his victims), but even the characterizations are a stretch. Renfro's character is very odd, and there is no given reason for why he is so naturally evil. And while it is hard enough to accept that McKellan would be bursting with evil 40 years later, with no hint of remorse (or even insight) about his past, it is completely ridiculous to assume he would be spending his evenings gassing cats and killing homeless people. The direction and acting make it worth watching, but in the end, I just couldn't take this overly serious movie seriously.

I sincerely hope Imdb is merely falsely reporting a rumor that Stephen King sold the film rights to Apt Pupil for $1, because Apt Pupil is one of the worst screen adaptations of a King novel. It ranks up there with Children of the Corn and, perhaps ironically worst of all, King's "Maximum Overdrive."

Apt Pupil is one of the most chilling King works I've ever read with only Children of the Corn being scarier. It's a cat-and-mouse story of a cocky, smart American kid who discovers that man who lives near him is actually a fugitive NAZI--one of the evil high-ranking officers that has thwarted the authorities for decades. But instead of doing the obvious right thing and turning him in, the boy engages in a deadly quid-pro-quo game of blackmail: he tells "Arthur Denker"--real name Kurt Dussander--to tell him everything that is too explicit for the war books and magazines.

The novel has a very dark ending, which you'd expect when a person makes a critically terrible decision and then tries endlessly to cover it up. This movie almost completely sanitizes it. Further, Brad Renfro was a horrible miscast as Todd Bowden. He acts nothing like the Bowden in the book. The pacing for this film was all wrong and never allows any of the characters to sufficiently develop. Only Ian McKellan and the well-intentioned efforts of David Schwimmer save this film from being a total skunk.

Apt Pupil is a movie of symbolism, it is a movie of metamorphosis, it is not a movie to be brushed off, taken lightly, nor is it to be watched if you want anything even remotely uplifting. It is a thoroughly depressing movie about corruption and the very root of evil. You'll find no plot summary here because you can scroll up slightly and find one. I can tell you Ian McKellen is one of the finest actors in the world and even solidifies that unlikely people like Brad Renfro and David Schwimmer can be incredible actors in their own rights. The movie poses several questions, almost none of which it answers and indeed might not have answers. It is, at it's core, about evil feeding into evil. The boy's evil reawakens the old man's evil, the old man's evil stokes the boy's evil and it continues to crescendo throughout coming to an incredible climax. A fascinating and thoroughly challenging movie.