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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I remember seeing the trailer for this movie in 1993 and sitting in the theater slack-jawed. As another reviewer said, it looked like "GREASE With Swastikas." Or more accurately, it's HOGAN'S HEROES meets THE BREAKFAST CLUB, with Kenneth Branagh as Colonel Klink. In any case, watching the trailer, I was shocked by the sheer tastelessness of the whole concept, and I avoided the film like the plague.Many years later, I rented the film from the library, and was surprised to find that it's . . . really not that bad. The music is amazing, the dancing is great, and a lot of the teen friendships and heartbreak are surprisingly touching. What sinks the movie is that the director Thomas Carter can't edit and never settles on a single story line to follow. There's too much going on, and moments of danger and terror are buried under endless scenes of squabbling and teenage silliness. Some performances are brilliant. Christian Bales steals every scene he's in, going from being a great guy and the ideal best friend to being a terrifying Nazi informer. He's playing the same part Marcus Boyd played in BEN HUR, only he's much, much, better at it. The only problem is, Robert Sean Leonard is no Charlton Heston! He just looks weak through most of the movie, and when he hits the dance floor alone in the epic finale he just looks like a boy on the verge of an epileptic fit. You can't jitterbug your way out of Germany, son!On the far side of brilliant, Kenneth Branagh is unquestionably the world's least menacing Nazi. What's next, Hugh Grant as Heinrich Himmler? Branagh's flabby face and tired physique give the impression of a guy nursing a pint in some pub, not a brutal killer and master manipulator. It's really pathetic that Christian Bales is half his age and ten times more deadly!One final note: Tushka Bergen was perfectly cast and stunning as Evie. The trailer makes it look like she's a major love interest in the film, but you only see about five minutes of her in the movie. Did I mention that Thomas Carter doesn't know how to edit?

This had the potential to be an engrossing, powerful film about a comparatively little known aspect of the Nazi era but, sadly, it falls far short of that. The first 60 to 80 minutes are the strongest as it features some great individual moments and nice characterisation, particularly in the case of Peter and Thomas, but it falls apart in the last half an hour. The film was never going to be "Schindler's List" or "Sophie's Choice" but I disliked the way in which it handled the Nazis. We're told repeatedly how evil they are and we see the aftermath of their atrocities in one instance but the worst things that we actually see them do are beat up a few people and steal things from a Jewish person's house. The first rule of drama? Show, don't tell. Speaking of the Jews, I had a major problem with the fact that all of the Jewish people persecuted or killed in the film are adult men. It's as if they thought that portraying or even mentioning the fact that the Nazis persecuted and killed millions of women and children would be distasteful. If that was the case, I think that it backfired badly. In fairness, there was a veiled reference to the Nazis killing the disabled and Gypsies but that was nothing much. Another thing that I hated was Peter's younger brother Willi chanting "Swing Heil! Swing Heil!" at the end of the film. I suspect that the audience were supposed to punch the air as we saw someone stand up to the Nazis but all that it produced in me was an awkward laugh and a shake of the head. On the bright side, the portrayal of male friendships, both the close and tempestuous varieties, in the early parts of the film is interesting and accurate in my experience so that's relatable but hardly something to get excited about in a film like this. It features some very good acting from Robert Sean Leonard, Kenneth Branagh (though his character contributes surprisingly little to the film), Frank Whaley and Barbara Hershey and, in smaller roles, Julia Stemberger, Noah Wyle and David Tom. Even Christian Bale, whom I usually loathe, is good. At least the film was made before he decided that putting on silly voices made him sound like a badass. Plus the music is great and there are a few very impressive dance routines.I think that the filmmakers' hearts were in the right places and that any offence that might have been caused by its failure to deal with the full extent of Nazi atrocities was certainly unintentional but it's still not a very good film.

I've read some of the reviews and feel I need to give a history lesson to some of them. This was 1938-1939. The Nazis hadn't gone berzerk with the killing of Jews and Gypsys etc. They may have been doing it in secret, but it wasn't common knowledge. That being said, the attempts to "cleanse" their society was indeed in full swing. *pardon the pun. They wanted nothing to do with outside influence, the training of the next generation was Hitler's plan. The HJ were to be the next generation of leaders, policemen, and general authority figures.Youth will rebel, it seems they always do to some degree. That's what these kids were doing. The movie is a very small view of what was going on. It's not the big picture.... it's basically Peter's struggle with who he is, who his father was, and his immediate environment. You can't really say the movie isn't accurate, because none of you is Peter.I love the movie. I love the music and the heart Peter puts into it. He loves the music... as he loved his father. And the Nazis tried to take both of them.

The music is fabulous, the dance scenes won awards, and kids can identify with these teens --or at least sense the joy their own grandparents (or more likely, their great grandparents) felt when dancing or playing 1930's Swing music. THIS FILM (SLIGHTLY EDITED) WOULD BE A GREAT TEACHING TOOL FOR GRADE SCHOOL ON UP...!With minor editing of swear words, vulgar sexual comments about young women, (including the teen boys' discussion of hiring women in the red light district) and a few of the PG 13-to almost R dance shots of young womens' undergarments replaced with milder shots of women in the otherwise joyful dance segments...SWING KIDS could be used to SHOW KIDS how the Nazis COULD QUICKLY transform the innocent ................into the guilty. Teachers could use clips from this film to ALSO teach persons about the almost FORGOTTEN Holocaust against the disabled..."Arvid was a cripple. He didn't belong..." says one TEENAGER. Everyone KNOWS the Nazis persecuted the Jews. But the Nazis also persecuted - the DISABLED, like the character Arvid, (a great SWING musician) who is driven to extreme action - in part maybe because he was disabled. One senses these teen boys - and their fellow teen companions - love their music and dance as much as teens do today. They deal with the steady, sometimes seductive, sometimes violent, advance of Nazis into their world...partly thru dance. (PS this film is based on actual German teens who loved swing music)