Director: Robert D. Krzykowski’s Cast Headliners: Sam Elliot, Aidan Turnet, Catherine FitzGerald, Larry Miller
Original Release Date: February 8th, 2019 (Direct To Digital)
Another case of a movie being literally what it says on the cover in this charming, quirky little direct to home release (but with ambitions and semi-renown talent). The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then Bigfoot has both events in the same film. It spans the serious, the dramatic, the historical, the silly, the pulpy. It’s quite an ambition and range that ultimately kind of has to reign things in but works as a cohesive whole.
The large 2/3 majority or so of the film winds between two foremost time periods. There’s the dramatic, slow burn of a modern-day portion (theoretically around the 1980s or 1990s considering the age of the star) and the mostly historical fiction / slightly cheesy World War 2 portion of the same person in veteran soldier Calvin Barr (Sam Elliot in the present and Aidan Turner in the past). Later events transpire to involve government agents in a plague center and a hunt for the Bigfoot creature in the wilderness. It ends up making sense in the end.
It’s almost like three different films mashed together into one since each is so different from the other. It’s best to thus examine them separately. The WW2 portion is very light on action being more like a “behind Nazi lines” mission of espionage. Turner’s take on Calvin is a decent performance as he speaks German and delivers envelopes. There’s a bit of humorous touch that goes with anything where Hitler is truly killed and this can be gotten from Nazi swastika-watches and the general very Bubba-Ho-Tep type feel to things. The actual Hitler killing(or maybe he doesn’t) is short but a bit of an intensity is felt. Ultimately these scenes (aside a surreal Russian informant shaving sequence) became a romantic drama between him and Maxine (Caitline FitzGerald). These portions are less exciting but showcase some emotional feels in peacetime that ends up meaning more as the more future tense plot plays out that must be seen firsthand.
“Present” Calvin takes up most of the screen time. Of course, it’s no surprise that Sam Elliot does a good job. He’s a worn out, grizzled man who has some wisecracks and some weariness. It’s on the spectrum of the likes of Gran Torino or Logan as he hangs out in bars and fights street thugs with an attitude. There’s also slow drama and friendship with the likes of his friend Ed (Larry Miller) and so on.
His relatively mundane world, and the film’s realism even further, is interrupted in-time by the arrival of government agents Mr.Gardner(Sean Bridgers) and Maple Leaf(Rizwan Manji). These two give a great, hammy performance as they talk of the biological threat posed by the hairy Bigfoot creature. What follows in these portions are some sequences both solemnly beautiful (giving a highlight to director Robert D. Krzykowski’s touch for nature yet also in close sequences…it helps him with the varying moods) and on the edge of schlocky cheesy gore horror. One can also guess if he ends up killing the fellow or not. One almost wishes for a little more of this although its distinctness makes it stand apart.
In the end it’s more of a film of how it weaves the sum of its parts together than an amazing whole. Even the not-cheesy ends up with a large of (one no doubts purposeful) cheese to it. Still if one likes unique ideas and Sam Elliot there’s some value hidden within its , for better or worse, brief runtime and amount of things actually killed. 7.8 out of 10
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