The German Doctor is story inspired by the fact that Nazi fugitive Josef Mengele hid out Argentina for a while; here, he hides out with a family who runs an inn, without them knowing who he is, and slowly becomes involved in their lives. I usually find this kind of movie to be underwhelming, but The German Doctor is better than average in this regard, and is an enjoyable movie – fairly interesting, well-paced, and possessing an unusual and effective score. Àlex Brendemühl gives a superb performance as Mengele, and all the supporting and incidental casting is done very well. But the film still suffers from a lack of dialog, in part on purpose because they’re trying to capture the way Mengele was seen by the family, in part because the family doesn’t have very much to say to each other. As a direct consequence of this, many things in the film feel unexplained – the family and their history, the father’s doll making, and the German school that the wife and daughter attended, for example – and even though the story is fairly gripping in the moment, in the end it strikes one as more than a little contrived, something of a hollow shell designed entirely to showcase Mengele’s various psychotic tendencies.

As we approach the half-way point of this year, it has definitely been one of the worst movie years in recent memory. From this perspective, people should be running to see The German Doctor, as it’s quite a bit better than the crap that’s been trotted out so far. But it really doesn’t stay with you very well, intellectually or emotionally, simply because there’s not a lot of substance to it. I very much doubt I would ever feel the desire to watch this film again. But I would recommend it, if you like this kind of story – you could do a lot worse, right now.