Wakolda 2013

Critics score:
73 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: Puenzo masterfully balances the film's thriller edge with disturbing details about Mengele's obsession with genetic experimentation, as well as the community of German expatriates in Argentina helping old Nazis elude arrest. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: A plodding Argentine potboiler. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: Limited by a severely rigid metaphorical framework that requires every action and character to signify either uniformity (bad) or diversity (good). Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Quietly unnerving. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The melodramatics in this movie may be cooked up, but the fears it conjures are very real. Read more

Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter: The sinister interest a Nazi physician takes in a 12-year-old girl and her family makes for a chilling, original tale. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: A credible imagining of a brief period in Mengele's South American exile. The what-if conceit is intriguing enough not to be undone by increasingly heavy-handed symbolism. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: The German Doctor is both predictable and oppressive. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Amid the melodrama is a resonant, highly moral kind of horror movie. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: 'The German Doctor' is never showy or melodramatic - just a kind of true-life horror story about the helpful, soft-spoken monster in our midst. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Like some extraterrestrial being who takes human form, Helmut is at once utterly familiar and utterly alien. Read more

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com: The restraint Puenzo employs here is an assured and refreshing change of pace-especially given the horrific subject matter. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Puenzo paints an arresting picture of postwar Argentina as a strange, morally occluded place, with former Nazis hiding at the best watering holes and resorts and with Mossad agents working in the shadows. Read more

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: Puenzo's initial premise is more promising, though, than her sensational tone. Read more

Adam Nayman, Globe and Mail: The German Doctor is skillfully made and acted, but without any sense of spontaneity or surprise - qualities required for any decent thriller. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: This curious, surprisingly safe melodrama fictionalises the postwar life of brutal Nazi surgeon Josef Mengele. Read more

Nick Schager, Village Voice: Puenzo dramatizes her material with an overcooked sense of import that generates scant suspense, even once Israeli agents close in on their Nazi prey. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Puenzo has a knack for plumbing the heads and hearts of teenage girls. The director coaxes a mesmerizing, unmannered performance out of Bado, who is making her feature-film debut. Read more