Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. 2024 Movie Review
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.
For a film that goes out of its way to ensure viewers know Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor, spy, and assassin from its hilariously bloated title, writer/director Todd Komarnicki’s Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. is committed to depicting those transformations and evolutions in standard cliff notes biopic storytelling. The man may have done some good, but the film is dull. It hits upon story beats while jumping back and forth through the lineage of World War II, never amassing any dramatic momentum. Labeling him an assassin is also quite a stretch (he didn’t kill anyone, at least not in this movie, and obviously fails in his plotting to assassinate Adolf Hitler), but that’s hardly an issue compared to how bland the storytelling is here, which is not the same as dry historical intrigue.
Everyone and everything here exists to serve the plot. Dietrich’s brother dies at an early age, forming some core principles. Later on, as a young adult (now played by Jonas Dassler, serviceable in the role and impressively expressing rising outrage and wrestling with duty) while studying theology abroad in New York, the progressive German befriends Frank Fisher (David Jonsson) and ingratiates himself into an African-American community, taking lessons from their Baptist ways of preaching, and then discovering the horrors of racism. None of these people come across as defined characters but rather instruments to broadly mold Dietrich into the eventual Nazi dissident, theological writer, and Confessing Church founder he would become.
Admittedly, the pastor portion is moderately engaging, observing Dietrich gradually breaking down at the Nazi invasion from within his country and even seemingly good people afraid to stand by their beliefs and do something about it. His sermons regularly offend Nazis, causing them to rise and march out. He also faces backlash within the church since his behavior effectively plays a target on their backs. It’s also pleasant that much of his firm beliefs are also grounded in honorable methods of practicing Christianity, which a particular group of people in the here and now could learn a thing or two from. This also seems to be a recurring trend with Angel Studios, so at the bare minimum, they are putting out respectable faith-based narratives comfortable with self-criticism rather than solely boasting righteous preachiness.
Some theological ponderings are also intriguing, such as when the spy and assassination planning comes into play, with Dietrich grappling with the words of the Bible while also posing, “What would God think if we didn’t try to kill Hitler?”The film also heavily relies on Dietrich’s more well-known quotes, to the point where the ending credits have them plastered all over the background. Again, it’s an element standing in for any semblance of meaningful character depth.
Like anything else centered on Adolf Hitler’s crimes against humanity, his rise to power and tactics also bear an uncanny similarity to someone else I won’t name. Still, in this case, those parallels are surprisingly blunt. There is a chance it could anger that demographic, but their media literacy is so nonexistent they might not even pick up on the comparisons. It’s also well-covered ground, although it might feel fresh and necessary again after current events.
Perhaps that sounds like reaching for something interesting to cling onto, which one has to do since Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. is otherwise flat. Dietrich is a noble person worthy of having his story told, but perhaps covering everything in his life isn’t the right approach, especially given the anticlimactic final stretch. It also feels like the filmmakers are trying too hard to paint this man as more important to history than he was. Angel Studios seems to badly want a Christian-based Oppenheimer mega-hit, which isn’t a terrible strategy for producing movies, but it’s often leading to a forced feel, lacking in artistic merit. There is probably something more compelling here focusing exclusively on either pastor, spy, or assassin.
