This film is remarkable on many levels, but two stand out: 1) the realistic portrayal of the events in Riga, wherein thousands of Jews were massacred by the Nazis, and 2) the fact that the "butcher" of these events in the film was not a fictional ploy but an actual SS officer named, as in the film, Rosschmann. The latter point is of interest, since the film provoked a world wide hunt for this murderer, who was located in South America, and who then fled to Paraguay where he died in 1977. The first part of the film is near perfect, though it gets more melodramatic in the latter part, with a number of unconvincing dramatic events added. One example: the journalist(Voight)attacking the burly professional hit man sent to kill him, and then actually winning a hand to hand struggle with him.
Review of The Odessa File
