Munich: The Edge of War ★★★½  

MORE than 50 actors have played Adolf Hitler on screen, including such luminaries as Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellen, Alec Guinness and Liam Neeson.

The best performance I have seen, and widely acknowledged as perhaps the best, is by the late German actor Bruno Ganz in the stunning 2004 film Downfall.

Now we can add to the list another German, Ulrich Matthes, who plays the dictator in the well-told Munich: The Edge of War.

Matthes appears in only a few scenes in this 2021 German/British thriller but makes the most of them, in particular providing one tension-filled highlight that works even though we know what could happen in the scene most likely didn’t occur in reality.

The film is directed by Christian Schwochow using a screenplay based on a 2017 novel, Munich, by Robert Harris. It spans a period of about 10 years starting in 1932.

Englishman Hugh Legat, played by George McKay, and German exchange students Paul von Hartmann (Jannis Niewöhner) and his girlfriend Lena  (Liv Lisa Fries) have bonded during their time at Oxford University and are celebrating their graduation with champagne down by the river.

Paul is looking forward to returning to his home city of Munich and urges Hugh to visit them soon to experience the bright future of the ‘New Germany’.

We jump to six years later and find Legat working for British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s secretary.

Hitler’s rising power has led him to threaten seizing control of the neighbouring Sudetenland from Britain’s ally Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain, played well by Jeremy Irons, is seeking ways to avoid another world war at any cost, holding onto the remote possibility that Hitler may withdraw or retrict his ambitions in Europe.

But, as we know, the dictator has no intention of doing so and is playing a political game to ensure the future Allies are fooled into underestimating him.

writes to Benito Mussolini in an effort to halt military action; it seemingly works and Hitler agrees, inviting Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier to Munich for a conference.

Hartmann works as a translator in the Foreign Office in Berlin but, having realised the true nature of the Third Reich, is part of a secret plot to have other concerned army officials agree to arrest Hitler and seize control.

Hartmann is given a stolen document by his lover, Helen Winter, that indicates Hitler intends to conquer all of Europe. The plotters realise they have to get the information to the British Prime Minister before he meets at the Munich Conference with the French Prime Minister Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler.

Hartmann reaches out to his old friend Legat for help, leading to a life-threatening, against-the-clock mission for both men.

This is a solid war story that builds its fictional characters well and takes its time explaining not just what is going on from an historical perspective but also the ramifications of success or failure.