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Bonhoeffer… Dietrich Bonhoeffer…
It’s one of those World War II dramas that appears to have begun with the best of intentions, as it following the titular German anti-Nazi chap, portrayed by Jonas Dassler, but ends up falling completely flat on its face.
Writer/director Todd Komarnicki (screenwriter for Sully: Miracle On The Hudson) introduces this biopic, thanking us for coming to the cinema to see it, and oddly, this piece is not only with him being filmed face-on, but also from the side… er.. why the latter?
Anyhoo, in my case, it fitted in alongside some other films I saw that day, and it only had the one timeslot scheduled on each occasion, so I could quite easily have missed it.
It’s a strange beast in how it jumps about in time, starting in 1945, at which point the bus he’s on has to go around a bridge, because that’s been bombed; then jumps back to 1918, as young lad, enjoying spending time with older brother Walter (Patrick Mölleken – Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare), before he goes off to fight in the First World war and doesn’t return, yet then back in 1945, we see he still has Walter’s bible, who “underlined all the good parts“.
And then back in 1930, when our lead is at University, then he’s off teaching Sunday School in Harlem, then he’s seen sat outside Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC… hang on, just slow down a bit!
Narrowing down to the important bit, in 1933/34, Hitler is on the rise, with the church treating him like some sort of prophet, as if this is the rise of Reform UK!
However, from the trailer, I thought we were getting a great war drama, not what feels like forever with the lead walking round like Churchy La Rue, praising a fictional deity, since we get 90 mins of tedium before they get to the main point of trying to assassinate Hitler, which we know ultimately won’t work out, because he killed himself on April 30th 1945.
Additionally, despite all the characters being German, everyone speaks in English, with dodgy accents. Perhaps, subtitles should be on, because even though I listened very carefully, they would say this only once! (Yes, it’s an ‘Allo ‘Allo reference!)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer certainly did some great work in his time, helping free seven men from a concentration camp – making me think there were possibly more, but the film’s plot is just showing us one such occasion – but when made into a biopic, this should’ve lasted an hour, tops, not 132 minutes!
I see a 90-minute film was released in 2010 about him, Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace, but that also appears to be not all it could’ve been.
It also has The Bill’s DI Carver (Mark Wingett) popping up alongside the lead, on his side, but he doesn’t say an awful lot. Plus, when the Nazis come to take over a particular house, one of them looks like a young John Cena.
NOTE: There are no mid- or post-credit scenes.
Bonhoeffer is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 132 minutes
Release date: March 7th 2025
Studio: Angel Studios
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Rating: 2/10
Director: Todd Komarnicki
Producers: Camille Kampouris, Emmanuel Kampouris, Chloe Kassis-Crowe, Todd Komarnicki, Mark O’Sullivan, John B Scanlon
Screenplay: Todd Komarnicki
Music: Gabriel Ferreira, Antonio Pinto
Cast:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Jonas Dassler
Young Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Phileas Heyblom
Martin Niemoller: August Diehl
Frank Fisher: David Jonsson
Hans Dohnanyi: Flula Borg
Karl Bonhoeffer: Moritz Bleibtreu
Paula Bonhoeffer: Nadine Heidenreich
Officer Ansel Knoblauch: Greg Kolpakchi
Eberhard Bethge: William Robinson
Reverend Powell Sr: Clarke Peters
Dr. Rascher: James Flynn
Sabine Bonhoeffer: Lisa Hofer
Herman Punder: Simon Licht
Vassily Kokorin: Evan Hart
Payne Best: Mark Wingett
Bishop Bell: Vincent Franklin
Gerhard Jacoby: Ingo Brosch
Walter Bonhoeffer: Patrick Mölleken
Louis Armstrong / Satchmo: John Akanmu
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.