Anthropoid 2016

     This film is based on the true story of Operation Anthropoid.  The Operation is the WWII mission to assassinate SS General Reinhard Heydrich in Czechoslovakia during the early part of 1942.  Heydrich was the Reich’s third in command after Hitler and Himmler.  Heydrick was the main architect behind the Final Solution and he lead the occupying Nazi forces in Czechoslovakia in 1939 as the district governor.  Jan Kubis is a former Czech soldier in exile, Josef Gabcik is a former Slovak soldier in exile and both have received training in London.  They parachute into Czechoslovakia after the Nazi takeover.  The plan of this top-secret mission is to shoot Heydrick and use an incendiary device directed at the car he is riding in on the street.

     Germany wanted to occupy Czechoslovakia because of their wealth of natural resources and manufacturing power.  This county would fuel the German war machine and enable them to conquer Poland.  They would also be able to put WWII into motion.  The SS easily defeated the Czech resistance and only a small group kept up resistance efforts.  There are a lot of problems with the plan established to eliminate Heydrick and initially the resistance balks at their plans.  I began to wonder from the beginning about how the resistance would escape after the attack?  Also, how severe and widespread would the retaliation be by the Germans?  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

120 min, Bio directed by Sean Ellis with Jamie Dornan, Cillian Murphy, Brian Caspe, Karel Hermanek, Jr., Hana Frejkova, Sean Mahon, Jan Hajek, Marcin Dorocinski, Toby Jones, Alena Mihulova, Bill Milner, Charlotte Le Bon, Pavel Reznicek.

Note:  Imdb 7.2 out of 10, 65% critic 70% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 2*, Amazon 4.4* out of 5* with 613 reviews, The Guardian 4* out of 5*.

Special Note:  As the third in the Nazi line of command, Heydrich’s car license plate was SS-3.  This subject was also in the films The Assassination of 1965 and Operation: Daybreak of 1975 plus 4 other films and several books.  Another film released in 2017 about the same subject is titled The Man with the Iron Heart.  Anthropoid means to resemble a human being in form.  Emily Watson was cast as Mrs. Moravcova but she dropped out when her father became ill.  Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan play Czechoslovakians but they are both from Ireland.