Denial (2016)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I wanted to like this movie but it reeks of BBC involvement and I mean that in a pejorative manner.Timothy Thrall is a fine actor and he garnered a great deal of attention for his role as Irving. But I think that his casting was unfortunate.Why?Because David Irving was (and is) a quite handsome man and Thrall looks like a Scrooge. One bad casting ruined the entire film for me. Thrall with his jowls and corners of his mouth turned down, looking confused - that's not Irving.Knowing the verdict of the trial beforehand makes the highlight of the film rather dim. Maybe if one has no knowledge of the trial or of Irving the film will be more of a surprise.Three stars.

Sorry, but it's a no from us. Undeniably a worthy subject, but so amateurishly handled in this clunky, one-note script. If you want to see a properly executed Holocaust legal drama, check out 'The Reader', not this. Tom Wilkinson is always excellent and watchable, but he's pretty much the only thing of value in this poor production. Not sure whether Rachel Weisz's Queens accent was authentic or not, but it was grating and annoying to listen to, which made her character very difficult to side with. Best to avoid.

This is not an easy watch by any means. Timothy Spall is fantastic and plays the denial character well. So well in fact, despite that I love him as an actor, I hate him in this. Truth is of course my feelings are really directed at the real life character he portrays, David Irving and any other holocaust denier for that matter. That this is a true story is most detestable of all. There's an undercurrent to this story though, away from the matter of the holocaust. It's that of the law, the way it works and the way people can work within it. How it can be used to protect racist, antisemitic people. How the simple right and wrong of the court is hard to equate in the real world and how the those wishing to justify their crimes use it, bend it and twist it for their defence. That the law protects everyone, even evil and unapologetically stupid people like David Irving and people like him. Freedom of speech is not freedom to lie. As a film, this is good, solidly acted, Tom Wilkinson being the stand out for me, but it could've been a little better, less glossy perhaps with such an important subject. Still, I'm very pleased that this story was brought to the screen. Holocaust denial is crap and every opportunity to call it so should be encouraged.

"Denial" centers on a Hitler "scholar", David Irving, a British author who has consistently denied the Holocaust, and his lawsuit against American historian Deborah Lipstadt. To be fair, Irving was among several scholars who refuted the authenticity of the so-called "Hitler Diaries" which were revealed by the German periodical "Stern" in the early 1980's. While Irving has brought to light many interesting facts about the Nazis and Adolph Hitler, he has repeatedly stated in his books he doesn't believe the Holocaust occurred on the widespread scale which is generally accepted by mainstream historians. Lipstadt published a book "Denying the Holocaust" in which she refers to how Irving and other deniers misrepresent history and facts to perpetuate their erroneous conclusions about the Holocaust. The trouble is, Irving wants it both ways. He wants to deny the Holocaust and yet be recognized by other scholars and historians. In short, he wants the keys to the academic washroom. He brought the lawsuit against Lipstadt because, in some sense, her books which referred to his denial of the Holocaust as bogus history was denying him the keys to the washroom. Lipstadt is a bona fide and recognized scholar, and her criticisms of Irving deny him entry into the exclusive club. The film is about Irving's attempt to debunk the criticisms of a fellow scholar and in some sense legitimize a debate about whether or not the Nazis systematically gassed Jews and other minorities labeled as "degenerate" by the German government in the late 1930's and 1940's.Timothy Spall in an Academy-Award caliber performance plays David Irving, author and Holocaust denier who sues Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz). Tom Wilkinson is convincing as Lipstadt's British libel lawyer. The film begins at a lecture concerning the Holocaust offered by Lipstadt and Irving interrupts the proceedings, claiming he has filed a lawsuit against the speaker. Instead of settling out of court, Lipstadt resolves to defend herself. She hires a law firm whose cracker jack defense attorney is Richard Rampton. To prepare, they not only visit one of the Auschwitz camp sites but painstakingly go through Irving's books to see if he uses propaganda and deception to further his assertions that the Holocaust as portrayed by history is a fallacy.An horrific episode in the annals of human history involved Germany whose government was controlled by right-wing radicals, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, better as the Nazi Party, and their supreme leader, Adolph Hitler. The Nazis with Hitler at the helm instigated what is known as the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem", a systematic extermination of Jews and those of Jewish heritage, defined as an individual as having one grandparent or closer being Jewish. Millions of Jews and other ethnicities such as Gypsies, Poles and other Eastern Europeans were forced into concentration camps where many gassed or suffered other heinous indignations. At the same time, Germany was fighting the Western Allies in the Second World War. When the war ended, many of the camps were liberated, such as those collectively called Auschwitz, and the inmates told horrific stories of unimaginable torture and execution.Over the many decades since the end of the Second World War, there have been a small but vocal group of so-called "historians" who have tried to tell and sell a different picture of the war. They claim the interment and execution of Jews and other ethnicities by the Nazis, called "The Holocaust", did not actually happen. They agree that inmates were interred in camps, but their captivity was intended for expulsion, not for extermination. They refer to the accepted fact of the Holocaust as a large propaganda hoax perpetrated by Jews. History is not always a pretty picture. But if we deny history, especially the horrific episodes, we deny who we are today and who we can become. While the real Lipstadt did not agree with Germany's government desiring to put Irving in jail for 3 years for denying the Holocaust, it is extremely important that we understand real history to the best of our abilities. We can help prevent a holocaust from occurring in the future only if we acknowledge the reasons for holocausts of the past, which entail knowing and understanding how and why they happened. It is interesting that the Jewish Holocaust and Holocaust Denial seem to have common enemies: Jews. Just about all Holocaust Deniers are Anti-Sematic. Is this a coincidence?