Tom Dooley Based on the true story of a young Public Prosecutor from Frankfurt named Johann Radmann (Alexander Fehling – 'Inglorious Basterds'). He encounters a survivor of Auschwitz and a journalist who want to bring the perpetrators of the atrocities that took place there to trial. The problem is that Germany seems to not want to rake over the coals of the past and there are former Nazi's everywhere who just don't care.What follows are the travails he and his friends go through in order to do something, try to build a case and wake the German people from their wilful apathy towards the war. We also have his personal life and that of those around him and who are swept up in the investigation.This is an extremely well made film, the story is completely gripping and I loved the period detail too. It does not sugar coat what took place but is also not horrific in terms of the graphic abuse that sadly occurred, especially at the hands of Mengele and co. It is very moving in places and features some truly excellent performances especially Fehling and his love interest Friedrike Becht ('Hannah Arendt')who plays Marlene – it is in German with very good subtitles and runs for 123 minutes and is one that is very easy to recommend indeed.

Turfseer Labyrinth of Lies deals with a pretty much forgotten chapter in German history—the 1963 Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. State prosecutors in the German city of Frankfurt brought former mid-and-low level functionaries of the Auschwitz death camp to trial despite opposition from Nazi sympathizers and an apathetic public. Perhaps the most surprising thing one learns from the film is just how ignorant the general population was of Auschwitz and the Nazi era when the story begins in 1958.The protagonist is a composite character, Johann Radmann, based on three real-life prosecutors, played by the popular German actor, Alexander Fehling. When we're first introduced to Radmann, he has a low level job in the prosecutor's officer handling traffic violations. His by-the-book demeanor immediately becomes apparent when he refuses to allow a pretty Fraulein, to pay a reduced fine for a traffic infraction.Through the efforts of Tomas Gnielka, a journalist obsessed with Germany's embrace of Nazism, Radmann soon gets wind of a former Auschwitz guard now working as a school teacher. Radmann is rebuffed by the lead prosecutor in the office who disparages him for taking an interest in the former Auschwitz guard—in the lead prosecutor's view, this will only open up a can of worms. But a higher-up, Fritz Bauer— the Attorney General-- is sympathetic toward efforts to uncover the crimes of the Nazi past, and appoints Radmann as the special prosecutor responsible for prosecuting those responsible for crimes at the death camp.Radmann gets his first leads from Simon Kirsch, an Auschwitz survivor, introduced to him by Gnielka. Kirsch is uncooperative at first but later, along with other survivors, provides important testimony that will aid Radmann in his quest to bring various Auschwitz functionaries to justice. Radmann also digs up evidence from files at an US Army base. Director Giulio Ricciarelli does well in chronicling the extreme state of denial many Germans were in as they grappled with the legacy of Nazi horrors. There are also sympathizers who do everything they can (including throwing a rock with a swastika on it, through Radmann's window), to derail him from finishing his job. You would never guess that the actual Auschwitz participants who now have ordinary jobs were stone-cold killers, just a little over a decade before.Labyrinth of Lies gets bogged down when Radmann becomes obsessed with tracking down the notorious "Butcher of Auschwitz", Dr. Josef Mengele, in spite of orders to desist from his boss Bauer. Radmann's efforts to capture Mengele prove fruitless, despite having learned that Mengele has been returning to Germany from South America to visit his relatives. Since we already know that Mengele was never captured, there is very little point in chronicling Radmann's unsuccessful quest for a good part of the second half of the narrative.Radmann has his "dark moment" of the second Act, when he becomes overly self-righteous in holding his fellow Germans to account for their indifference during the Nazi years. It turns out that Gnielka, the fanatically anti-Nazi journalist, was actually a 17 year old worker at the death camp; and Redmann's girlfriend, Marlene, has been making profits in selling clothes to the wives of former Nazis. At one point Radmann quits the prosecutor's office and signs on with a hot-shot attorney but eventually sees the light and agrees to finish his prosecutorial duties.Labyrinth of Lies is a valuable film in that it paints an indelible portrait of a society coming to grips with its dark past. While not everything works in the film (the Mengele sequence is particularly overdone), the exploration of this largely forgotten chapter in German history, is most welcome.

chris-55525 I congratulate the Germans for their courage to treat their history this way. A film with an excellent scenario and great "non Hollywood actors". The experience the director gained producing documentaries in the past was transferred successfully into his first feature film. The atmosphere of the fifties in Germany was well recreated. Till I saw the film I was under the impression that the "Entnazifizierungsprozess" started right after the Nurnberg trials. This film proves that it actually started in the early sixties. The question always remains, how a nation that produced Goethes, Schillers, Beethovens and others like them could commit these crimes against humanity. Let's not forget that the Nazis were voted to power.

Paul Allaer "Labyrinth of Lies" (2014 release from Germany; original title "Im Labyrinth des Schweigens" or "In the Labyrinth of Silence" 122 min.) brings the story of the events leading up to the so-called Frankfurt Auschwitz trials in 1963. As the movie opens, we are told it is "Frankfurt-am-Main, 1958", and we get to know a young prosecutor named Johann Radmann, who is just starting his career, doing traffic violations. But soon he gets (and seizes) the opportunity to look into the case of a Waffen SS soldier who was a commander at Auschwitz and is now teaching in grade school as if nothing ever happened. Radmann soon finds that there is widespread resistance to his efforts to prosecute ex-Nazis. At this point, we are 15 minutes into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: this movie is an important reminder that the sentiment in Germany wasn't always what it is nowadays and has been for decades. It appears that after WW II, the entire country went about its business as if nothing had happened, and collectively tries to whitewash Auschwitz from memory. But as Radmann points out, "to remain silent is to poison our country's democracy". So he speaks up. It is an incredible story. Kudos to the movie's producers for bringing us this important historical reminder. Besides the important moral and historical aspects, the movie does a great job portraying what daily life in the late 50s and early 60s was in West Germany. Check out the great looking cars! "Labyrinth of Lies" was Germany's submission for this year's Best Foreign Language Movie Oscar nominations, which should give you an idea how well the movie was viewed in its home country (the fact that it didn't get the Oscar nomination doesn't diminish the merits of the movie)."Labyrinth of Lies" was released over a year ago. I have no idea why it is just now finding its way into US theaters, but better late than never. The movie showed up this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, I figure this won't stick around for long. The Sunday matinée screening where I saw this at was surprisingly well attended, I am happy to report. If you are in the mood for a top-notch quality foreign movie that has a very important lesson and reminder, I urge you to check out "Labyrinth of Lies", be it in the theater, on Amazon Instant Video or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. "Labyrinth of Lies" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!