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A famed Nazi hunter uncovers a plot by Nazi Dr. Mengele to change the course of the world.

In The Boys From Brazil, a young amateur Nazi hunter, Barry Kohler, (Steve Guttenburg) finds out that Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck)  has gathered a group of former colleagues for help with a project. Kohler calls famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier) to tell him the news, but Lieberman already knows Mengele’s there and tells Kohler to stay away from the project if he values his life. Kohler goes to get proof of what the Nazis are up to and finds a servant boy to help him plant a recorder in the house.

Kohler is able to record that Mengele is having his former colleagues go off to kill a group of males from Europe, the U.S., and Canada, all aged 65, who happen to be civil servants, and on specific dates. Mengele doesn’t reveal why, just that it has to be done. Unfortunately, a guard finds the little boy’s radio picking up the signal from the microphone and the child reveals Kohler’s whereabouts. Kohler manages to call Lieberman with part of the info, but is killed (unbeknownst to Lieberman) as the tape plays. Mengele stops the tape and picks up the phone realizing that Lieberman knows part of the plan. However, he decides not to tell the other Nazis about Lieberman.

Lieberman decides to investigate and gets info on all 65 year-old civil servant who die somewhat suspiciously or in a manner that looks like an accident. He begins to interview a few of the widows and comes in contact with a friend of Kohler’s who believes he’s been killed. Lieberman agrees to help the friend and they both go off to interview more widows.
However, it is on his second interview that Lieberman runs into the deceased male’s child—a 14 year-old boy with jet black hair, odd piercing blue eyes, and a strange demeanor. Lieberman is shocked and when he says the boy has a twin in Germany, the mother (played by Anne Meara) gets upset and pushes him out the door. Later she comes to visit and it is revealed her son is adopted. She also tells him the baby came from the very woman, Frieda Maloney (Uta Hagen ), who Lieberman had put away in prison for being a concentration camp guard who murdered children.

Lieberman goes to visit Maloney who reveals she had to find fathers who were a certain age with younger wives. The fathers had to be civil servants and she delivered the babies to them from Brazil. She also says the babies had dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Lieberman casually asks how Mengele fits into the adoption scheme and she freaks out. However, she also reveals one of the families gave her a Doberman.

Lieberman begins putting the pieces together and visit with a scientist who teaches him about cloning and the possibilities. As he and the scientist begin to take into account the similarities between the children (especially the fact the personalities are the same) and their living situation (spoiled by the mother, civil servant older father), he realizes what Mengele’s up to. SPOILER ALERT: Now the back of the DVD box clearly reveals this information, but when it comes to suspense movies, I often avoid reading the summary, so I’m putting a disclaimer up in case others also want to remain in the dark. Basically Mengele took DNA from Hitler with the plans to clone him in similar environments that he grew up in hence why the males have to be killed on specific dates—like he lost his father at age 14.

The movie is chilling and even though it was made years ago, it becomes even more frightening and relevant now seeing as science really is capable of cloning. The fact we know that Mengele really did work on strange scientific experiments (including injecting young children’s eyes to make them blue) makes it seems quite possible that he could have been working on cloning.

Sir Laurence Oliver is perfect as the Nazi hunter with a very realistic accent. Every scene he’s in is perfection from the looks of horror, to the scene where he pants in pain and terror as several of the families’ Dobermans attack Mengele after the two of them have fought. His acting skills are even sharper than they were in his previous films. Gregory Peck definitely is not typecast as his role as the domineering, mad doctor. He occasionally overdoes it as he screams out the destiny of one of the clones, as the child, Bobby (Jeremy Black), decides what to do with the two men bleeding in his living room. We see a glint of evil in Bobby’s eyes as the dogs attack Mengele, an attack which even sickens Lieberman.

The film is filled with great acting, plot twists (assuming you don’t read the DVD summary on the case), and is as timely now (maybe even more so) as it was when the film was first released in 1978. Interestingly, Dr. Mengele was alive at that time and his remains were found in South American.

This is a creepy and suspenseful thriller that will shock you. The acting alone makes this well worth watching. Word of warning though, that Doberman attack scene is very intense. The DVD extras aren’t spectacular, just a bit of background info on the cast and crew and a little background on the filmmaking. If you already own this film on DVD (it previously was released in 1999), there’s nothing new offered on the new disk. However, for first time viewers, The Boys from Brazil, is a great addition to any DVD collection.

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