by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: Discs: 1, The Film: 4/5, The Extras: 3/5, Overall: 7/10
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen, Steve Guttenberg, Denholm Elliott
Intro:
Imperfect and perhaps a little thematically dated, The Boys From Brazil is nonetheless a tense, engaging, sardonically amusing and intentionally ambiguous look at the hunt for absolute evil and its ability to survive through the generations.
The Film:
You know who doesn’t get talked about nearly enough these days? American novelist Ira Levin. The bloke didn’t have the most prolific output, but (almost) everything he wrote was an absolute banger and, perhaps more pertinently, made for quality cinematic adaptations.
There was A Kiss Before Dying (adapted in 1956 and 1991), Rosemary’s Baby (adapted in 1968 as a stone cold Polanski classic and a middling miniseries in 2014), The Stepford Wives (adapted twice, well in 1975 and goofily in 2004), The Boys From Brazil (more on the 1978 movie in a sec) and Sliver (adapted as toey trash in 1991). The only two books he wrote that remain unadapted were One Perfect Day, an ingenious sci-fi story that was probably a bit too ambitious for its own good and Son of Rosemary, a sequel to Rosemary’s Baby liked by literally no one on the planet.
It’s The Boys From Brazil that we’re going to talk about today, thanks to a handsome new blu-ray release. This 1978 classic has it all: an astonishing cast of A-listers, a well-honed script, genuine tension and one of the most cheerfully bizarre twists in all of cinema.
The Boys From Brazil is the story of Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), a near-povo Nazi hunter living in Vienna who pours all his spare dosh into tracking down the goose-stepping wankers who came runners up in WWII. Ez gets a tip from a young Jewish bloke, Barry Kohler (Steve Guttenberg) that there’s a Nazi plot afoot, led by none other than mad doctor Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck) and involving 94 bizarre murders of 65-year-old civil servants all around the world. At first, Ezra is none too convinced, but when Bazza cops a knife to the guts and the killings begin, he realises that it’s time to get involved. Can Ezra stop Mengele in time? What are the surviving Nazis actually up to and why does this mad scheme involve the genetic material from a certain mediocre Austrian painter?
At its core, The Boys From Brazil is a gripping, globe-trotting thriller that very accurately echoes the anxiety of the times. See, in the late ‘70s there were quite a few Nazis still lobbing about the place, usually in South America but elsewhere as well, and there was a feeling that if not stamped out, history might very well repeat itself. These fears seem almost quaint now, in an era where neo-nazis openly announce themselves on social media and the like, and it does rather date the proceedings. The cast, however, cannot be beat. Despite slightly wonky accents, Olivier and Peck are superb as Lieberman and Mengele respectively, and the support cast features the likes of James Mason, Uta Hagen and Denholm Elliott. Hell, even Steve Guttenberg delivers a solid turn as a well-intentioned but ill-fated amateur nazi hunter.
In terms of the story, there’s a big twist that gets revealed a little after the halfway point and friends, it is wild. It also, given scientific advancements in 2026, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when we apply modern knowledge to it. Similar to sci-fi films made before mankind had gone to space, The Boys From Brazil takes some big (big!) conceptual swings that end up feeling unintentionally goofy at times. For most of us, that’s fine, suspension of disbelief is an inherent part of watching movies like this, but for any Neil deGrasse Tyson types out there: you have been warned.
The blu-ray of this classic flick looks absolutely superb and really showcases the solid, non-flashy but very pleasing direction from Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton, Planet of the Apes). The Boys From Brazil isn’t a perfect film, and it feels like a bit of old rope at times, but a solid script, a fantastic cast and slick, engaging direction make this an oldie that’s also a goodie and well worth revisiting.
The Extras:
Solid if unexceptional selection of extras, which is to be expected from a film of this vintage because, sadly, most of the principals are no longer with us.
There’s an audio commentary by film historians Lee Pfeiffer, Paul Scrabo and Tony Latino. There’s a Super 8 version of the movie… for some reason, an isolated score and a couple of trailers.
Best of the lot, almost by default, is the new movie length interview compilation with camera assistant Dewi Humphreys, lighting tech Chuck Finch, sound assistant Bill Barringer, make-up bloke Christopher Tucker, location manager Frederick Muller, standby props Mickey Pugh and special effects maestro John Evans. The anecdotes range from mildly interesting to genuinely hilarious, and the revelation that the “deadly dobermans” from the film’s climax kept falling asleep on the warm set is absolutely adorable.
The real star of the show here is the high-def version of the movie, but the extras provide some mildly diverting deep dives for superfans.
The Verdict:
Imperfect and perhaps a little thematically dated, The Boys From Brazil is nonetheless a tense, engaging, sardonically amusing and intentionally ambiguous look at the hunt for absolute evil and its ability to survive through the generations.
Buoyed considerably by a great cast, this is a classic film that seems to have been at least partially forgotten by the modern audiences. Thanks to this release, that (war) crime has been corrected and this is the perfect, reasonably priced way to revisit those naughty, naughty boys of Brazil.
