Adios Fuhrer! Adolf Hitler. Review on Gandhi To Hitler

Few days back, I saw one honest attempt named "Gandhi to Hitler" a movie by a debutante Rakesh Ranjan Kumar, which was released outside India by the name "My Friend Hitler". In 2 lines I could say, an honest attempt with brilliant performances, and great direction, a once-for-sure watch movie. This movie is acted by Raghuvir Yadav, Aman Verma, Neha Dhupia, Nalin Singh, Nasir Abdullah, Nikita Anand and Avijit Dutt.

The movie depicts the last years of Germany's losing-dictator Hitler (played by Raghuvir Yadav), when he was facing losses in the 2nd world war, and his Berlin was soon-to-be-demolished by Soviet-polish army. He was living in a bunker, hiding with his other personnels, when his army was fighting and perishing on the surface. He was accompanied by his mistress, Eva Braun (Neha Dhupia), his friend, also the architecture of Berlin city, Albert Speer (Nasir Abdullah), and other close associates like Magda (Nikita Anand), Joseph (Nalin Singh). On the other hand, there is Gandhi ji (played by Avijit Dutt), who is giving the message of non-violence, and who wrote letters to Hitler about following the path of non-violence, where he is preaching that "whatever he sows, he cuts". There is one more story going in between, it's the story of a lost brigade of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's Azad Hind Fauj, led by (played by Aman Verma) where they are passing through the whole Europe, so as to reach back to Indian lands, but got caught in between, by enemy forces, and got killed.

Now the story (Nalin SIngh, Rakesh Ranjan Kumar) is not much related with the main title, although just a part of it was related, in the form of letters written by Gandhiji to his friend Adolf Hitler, the story is basically divided into 2 parts - one story is going on about a war-lost Hitler, who was hidden in a bunker, waiting for his last days, and you feel sorry for otherwise hated Hitler, that was his depiction in the movie, and is brilliantly played by Raghuvir Yadav. Well, at first glance, he seems a wrong choice for Hitler, but soon you started liking him, when he speaks in a hitler tone, shouting, his way of walking, and all the hitler gestures he followed, he's a classic actor, and he tried to fit in the shoes of every character you throw at him. Alongwith him, other brilliant performance comes from Neha Dhupia, in the role of Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun. She did her role beautifully. The best part of this movie was how the european scene and characters were recreated in Hindi cinema, all the dialogues are in Hindi, but it was one of the first attempt you can say by the courageous director to create other society's realm using the Bollywood's actors. These attempts are very common in Hollywood Cinema. Third amazing performance is did by Aman Verma, he played the role of a chief of a on-a-run platoon of Azad Hind Fauj, who is saving their life while trying to get back at their homeland, crossing all Europe, avoiding all the enemies' forces attack. He played extremely well the character of a platoon commander whose mission is not only to ensure his platoon's survival in enemy lands, but he also have to take care of fightings taking place between his men, because of rising frustrations. Direction (Rakesh Ranjan Kumar) is good, after knowing that the director is debuting. But in many-a-places budget seems a restriction here in movie. Director tries his best to show the Indian scenic locations to look-alike European lands, but sometimes, it didnt come out well. He has used many historic footages to show the World War 2, looks like sometime the footage is showing and sometime our characters are talking about the war, although director tries his best to give a class film with minimal budget offered, and if you ignore these discrepancies, it looked okay to bear with. The cinematography by Fuwad Khan will look more good, had some scenic location would be thrown at him to picturise. The scene of burning and attacked Berlin, was an example of low-budget, since only a street with burned vehicles was shown. The movie goes for around 2 hrs, but looks a slow movie (Screenplay - Rakesh Ranjan Kumar), since there is not much story to cover. Some scenes steal the show, the escape of Azad Hind Fauj acted by Aman Verma and party. some scenes with Hitler, and the climax, where Hitler gave Cyanide to her mistress Eva, and then shoot himself, asked to be cremated thereafter by his subordinates, and then later Magda put a cyanide each inside the mouth of her sleeping children, so as nobody could be caught by enemies to get tortured.

This movie is good on an experimental basis, and I must appreciate Rakesh Ranjan Kumar for his brave attempt, but the movie depicts a sympathy towards world's greatest Dictator Adolf Hitler, who killed so many innocent Jews in his concentration camps and is in no way can be justified by sympathy, but movie actually did that, and for viewers put him in a good light. Hence so many controversies occur on the movie all over the world by Jewish Community, also the movie is not liked by movie critics, main reason being all characters played by Indian actor where all the characters are german and not Indian, but in my opinion, that was the best part of the movie. But movie is sure to watch, my take 3.5/5.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki :)