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The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot Review
Loading...The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot Review
Sam Elliott– Calvin Barr
Aidan Turner– Calvin Barr
Caitlin Fitzgerald– Maxine
Ron Livingston– Flag Pin
Larry Miller– Ed
Rizwan Manji– Maple Leaf
Mark Steger– The Bigfoot
Directed by Robert D. Krzykowski
Screenplay by Robert D. Krzykowski
Distributed by RLJ Entertainment
Not Rated
Runtime– 98 minutes
https://www.facebook.com/TheManWhoKilled/
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot, written and directed by Robert D. Krzykowski, is a hard movie to enjoy because it spends almost its entire running time wallowing in the depression and misery of its main character, a reluctant hero who, despite participating in two monumental events, doesn’t get anything that he wants out of life. He achieves no fame, no fortune, no sense of accomplishment, and he loses out on living with the love of his life. It’s a movie that proudly displays its melancholy. I’m not sure audiences of any stripe are going to actually like it.
The movie stars a miscast but still game Sam Elliott as Calvin Barr, an ex-badass who, back during World War II, assassinated Adolf Hitler. Very few people actually know that Barr killed Hitler, and those that do “know” aren’t quite sure that it’s a true story anyway, as Barr’s story directly contradicts the official story of how Hitler died at the end of the war. Barr didn’t want to kill Hitler in the first place. Barr never wanted to kill anyone. Barr did it, though, out of a sense of duty. Once the war ended and he was discharged from the armed services, Barr tried to find the right time to ask his longtime girlfriend Maxine (Caitlin FitzGerald) to marry him. Barr failed at that quest.
Fast forward to, I guess, the 1980’s, and Barr is recruited by both the American and Canadian governments to kill the legendary Bigfoot, a creature that exists and is carrying a nasty plague that, if it ever gets out of the dense Canadian forests, could destroy damn near all life on Earth. Barr is one of the few people in the world that’s actually immune to the Bigfoot plague and, as he is told by both a man codenamed Flag Pin (Ron Livingston) and man codenamed Maple Leaf (Rizwan Manji), he is the only one with immunity that can kill the creature. At first, Barr doesn’t want to do the job. He doesn’t want to kill anyone or anything, and he would much rather go fishing and hang out with his younger brother Ed (a terrific Larry Miller). However, after thinking about it for a little bit, Barr decides to accept the job offer and heads to Canada to kill the Bigfoot.
The sequences during World War II are underplayed and not as spectacular as you would expect them to be. There’s no real tension, nothing particularly exciting about what Barr is set out to do. You would think that, in the moment that he does it, that Barr killing Hitler would be a big fucking deal. It isn’t. It’s just something that happens. When the story finally gets around to killing Bigfoot, the scope of the movie grows and suddenly what we’re watching is very different than the first part of the movie. Watching Elliott’s Barr track the diseased creature through the trees and cliffs and whatnot of the Canadian wilderness is pretty awesome and would make for a great movie in and of itself. But then that segment of the movie is over quickly and the movie shifts back to being quiet and depressing. I’m not sure that was the best strategy for this idea.
What should have happened? Krzykowski probably should have found a way to make Barr, in the moment of his danger fraught missions, seem bigger than life. There isn’t enough contrast between the legend and the actual man, so, at least for me, there’s a real sense of who cares about all of this? Calvin Barr is just some guy at all times. Cinematically, that doesn’t work.
The casting of Sam Elliott also doesn’t work, either. Elliott is an awesome actor, always watchable, and does his best to make Calvin Barr interesting despite being a depressing as fuck figure, but he just can’t pull it off. It also doesn’t help that Aidan Turner, who plays the younger Barr during World War II, is boring as Barr. He doesn’t come off as a “young Sam Elliott” at all. He comes off more like a guy the production could afford so he was hired for the part.
What does work? Again, the “hunting Bigfoot” section works quite well and is exciting. The Bigfoot creature is not quite what you expect it to be but, at the same time, is scary and a formidable foe for Burr to take on. There’s a “three guys try to mug Sam Elliott” scene that kicks ass. Larry Miller does a superb job as Calvin’s younger brother, a slight but happy man who, I think, lived the life that Calvin wanted to have. Despite his fairly solemn performance, Miller actually breathes life into every scene he’s in. And I liked Rizwann Manji as Maple Leaf, the Canadian scientist who just wants to stop the plague.
Now, while Elliott is all wrong for the part, he does have one great acting scene, where he tries to explain why killing Adolf Hitler didn’t really matter. His sneering back and forth with the smug Flag Pin character is a scene that should live on on YouTube.
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot isn’t a terrible movie. It’s just interesting enough to warrant a watch at some point in your life. At the same time, it’s not a movie that requires you to see it right away. You should instead ease into it one of these days, when you have nothing else going on.
So, yeah, check out The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot one of these days. It’s worth checking out.
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: 3, and if the muggers are dead and not just badly injured, 6.
Explosions: None.
Nudity?: None.
Doobage: Bar stuff, a watch that has a swastika on it, a full on personal property inspection, a pat down, a gun made out of various items that you wouldn’t normally associate with a gun, vacation advice, a homeless man asking for change, attempted mugging, face slapping, deliberate old photo destruction, lead pipe attack, a terrific leg break, gun breaking, a pill box, old Russian guys out in the woods hooey, an old wooden box, a medal in a jar full of buttons, right shoe hooey, attempted honesty with a winning lotto ticket, a mirror clock, a great bit where a guy gives the “Heil Hitler” salute while crossing his fingers behind his back, popping Hitler’s grape, a sad date, a full on government intervention, a giant white dome, men in hazmat suits, a series of medical tests, gun picking, a massive controlled fire, walkie talkie hooey, a very dead moose, poop smelling, letter reading, attempted dead body burning, a surprise attack, multiple stabbings, arm breaking, Bigfoot barf, a point blank shot to the head, a funeral, fishing, a total lack of interest in art, school play hooey, grave digging, rock hooey, and a sad ending.
Kim Richards?: None.
Gratuitous: Sam Elliott, Sam Elliott sitting alone at a bar, jukebox bullshit, Sam Elliott looking at himself in the mirror, Sam Elliott fucking up three muggers with a lead pipe, Sam Elliott eating breakfast, a shaving speech that’s creepy as hell, drinking gin that’s actually vodka, Larry Miller, Larry Miller as a barber, Sam Elliott eating a TV dinner in front of the TV, Ron Livingston, a rotary phone, cocoa, marshmallows, Sam Elliott fixing his dislocated fingers, Sam Elliott smelling Bigfoot’s poop, Sam Elliott climbing a cliff, Sam Elliott talking to an owl, a Dick Tracy stamp, Bigfoot barf, Sam Elliott digging up his own grave, and a sad ending.
Best lines: “All right, George, take care,” “See you tomorrow, George,” “Bad tobacco,” “I’m not America. I’m just a mission,” “Don’t you move, Mr. America, or you will curse yourself,” “Do you sell this kind of lottery ticket here?,” “Hey, move your table, pal, it’s in the way of everything,” “I love you, Calvin,” “Cut to the chase, gentlemen,” “That day, I just killed a man. What he stood for was unstoppable,” “All I ever did was what they said, That’s it,” “What do you think?,” “I brought you some hot cocoa,” “Be careful, Calvin. I still want to go fishing,” “That gun. That scope. This knife. That’s it,” “I know what time it is,” “Hmm. Vegetarian,” “This isn’t what I wanted. I’m sorry,” “I said some nice things at your grave. Sorry I couldn’t be there,” “Can we just sit quiet, Ed?,” and “Come on, boy, let’s go home.”
