The book was a suspenseful investigation by journalist Peter Miller, and its specific pace was a real challenge to adapt into a 2-hour movie.
The biggest challenge of all lied with the basis of the investigation: the diary of a Jewish inmate describing SS Captain Eduard Roschmann's war crimes in Riga. The extended version of it in the book sets a powerful back-story that fleshes up the investigation right from the start. However, despite the detailed horror, you can guess Miller's true motive in the book. In the movie the diary is roughly edited into a quick flashback, a caricature of what was supposed to be a powerful testimony. B&W images of Nazis and Jews in Riga are too sharp and clean, the prisoners themselves are clean and never seem to be starving, the horror, the true agony of men and women (no children on screen) treated as unworthy cattle is missing from every frame.
Thus the adaptation misses the point of the book: an investigation building up from the diary. The director rushes a lot in the flashback and the next few steps, as a result suspense does not have time to settle in since we're thrown into a conspiracy action shuffling pace. The investigation looks like an easy game, only bumping into the ubiquitous SS manpower.
So the two big flaws that make The Odessa File a mediocre movie are:
One good point though, the disturbing clumsiness of Peter Miller as his investigation gets more and more dangerous, in the book, has been properly dealt with. But as in the book Peter Miller is a rather bland character. His stubbornness doesn't help to make him interesting as he does his job.
The biggest challenge of all lied with the basis of the investigation: the diary of a Jewish inmate describing SS Captain Eduard Roschmann's war crimes in Riga. The extended version of it in the book sets a powerful back-story that fleshes up the investigation right from the start. However, despite the detailed horror, you can guess Miller's true motive in the book. In the movie the diary is roughly edited into a quick flashback, a caricature of what was supposed to be a powerful testimony. B&W images of Nazis and Jews in Riga are too sharp and clean, the prisoners themselves are clean and never seem to be starving, the horror, the true agony of men and women (no children on screen) treated as unworthy cattle is missing from every frame.
Thus the adaptation misses the point of the book: an investigation building up from the diary. The director rushes a lot in the flashback and the next few steps, as a result suspense does not have time to settle in since we're thrown into a conspiracy action shuffling pace. The investigation looks like an easy game, only bumping into the ubiquitous SS manpower.
So the two big flaws that make The Odessa File a mediocre movie are:
- a poor adaptation missing the point of suspense building up as the investigation gains momentum;
- the shortcuts in the seminal flashback and in the ODESSA premise summed up as a gigantic SS conspiracy pulling the strings behind every German administration (in 1963).
One good point though, the disturbing clumsiness of Peter Miller as his investigation gets more and more dangerous, in the book, has been properly dealt with. But as in the book Peter Miller is a rather bland character. His stubbornness doesn't help to make him interesting as he does his job.