2016’s Anthropoid depicts a number of very attractive people planning and attempting to assassinate SS General Reinhard Heydrich, and attempting to avoid German retaliation afterward. It is based on a true story or real events—whatever you want to say. The very handsome Jamie Dornan (from a number of movies about a number of shades) plays Jan Kubis, while the perhaps slightly less handsome Cillian Murphy (Dunkirk) plays Josef Gabcik.

The attempt goes reasonably well and somewhat horribly.

This is a tremendously solid and well-executed movie. If you think it drags in the middle, I’m not sure there are many movies I can recommend where you won’t feel that way—the action is certainly back loaded, but there’s intrigue, suspense, gritty realism and some genuine tension throughout—and oddly some romance. Actually, they sneak a pretty good love story into this thriller—or have a lot action and suspense in this love story. If it were less grim, I might call it a date movie.

It is, however, more than a little grim. Cyanide capsules are introduced in the first act, and many of them go off in the final act. And we find ourselves rooting for brave and frightened resistance fighters to find and swallow their capsules in time, before they are captured, tortured and eventually killed, which is not typical for a date movie.

Not even everyone in the film wants to date. In this scene, Murphy’s very attractive Gabcik chastises some women for being too attractive in public. Charlotte Le Bon plays Marie Kovárníková and Anna Geislerová plays Lenka Fafková. and everyone eventually does date–and this is apparently historically accurate, or at least very historically accurate for a movie.

But before that our heroes parachute in, and since one is wounded in the landing, they do the classic “take the wounded guy to a veterinarian”—if I was a Nazi, I’d absolutely stake out veterinarians’ offices.

They eventually meet up with the depleted Czech resistance and then plan for and argue for and against the assassination of Heydrich. The middle of the film has some intrigue and suspense; we don’t know who to trust; Gabcik encourages people to trust no one, including the leaders of the resistance, and there’s political tension between “London,” which has this vague, shadowy authority, and the few left on the ground who wonder about the value of anything they do, given the great cost in lives in Prague.

And the cost of lives has been great. When Gabcik says he needs more help from the resistance, their leader Ladislav Vanék (Marcin Dorocinski) waves vaguely and says, “We are what’s left of the Czech resistance.” This reminds me of The Train, which also asks if these risks are worthwhile for a constantly dwindling resistance, they are down to three men at the start of the film, but this may just be an excuse to mention The Train because it’s really good, and you should watch it.

Before the action kicks in, the film reflects on the value of life and how we should treasure the moments we have. Gabcik warns Kubis against getting attached to Kovárníková, and Kubis responds, “I have to believe there’s a way through this. That there’s a normal life waiting for us.”

However naive and hopeless this attitude seems to Gabcik, when he develops reconnaissance photographs he had taken, having had Fafkova pose in the foreground as the excuse, he pauses to look at her instead of the possible ambush site, perhaps reflecting on what could, but will not, be.

This reflection and the subsequent action questions the value of the assassination attempt—all these beautiful young people—and plenty of other people—risk and lose their lives, and the Germans become no less brutal; there is no indication Heydrich’s removal will lead to the Germans defeat or a more lenient or just occupation. It will likely lead only to brutal reprisals. It questions the value of these things while almost paradoxically honoring their courage.

Once the shooting starts in the final act, I can’t imagine anyone finding the action sequences unsatisfying—unless, of course, you have a problem with the shaky camera thing. This, however, is not the shakiest camera you’ll ever encounter; Paul Greengrass is laughing at the very thought that this camera is shaky.

The attack on Heydrich is gritty, realistic, exciting and not romanticized, with windows of a nearby streetcar being blown out and chaos that seems clear—we see bystanders who are injured both by the Germans and the resistance fighters.

A final defense in a church, like all the action, has a grim and gritty realism to it and appears to be reasonably faithful to historical accounts.

Recommendation

Anthropoid is a really good movie but not my favorite Cillian Murphy World War II movie. I don’t think it should be on anyone’s top ten list of World War II movies, but I wouldn’t be angry to see it on one.

Dunkirk is my favorite Cillian Murphy World War II movie, but not my favorite Michael Caine World War II movie. I don’t yet know what my favorite Michael Caine World War II movie is, but I kind of have a thing for Play Dirty—but seriously, the man was also in A Bridge too Far, The Battle of Britain and The Eagle Has Landed.