The Captain
Music Box Films | Release Date: July 27, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeOct 2, 2018
The stark beauty of Florian Ballhaus’s black-and-white cinematography and painterly framing can’t conceal the ugliness that unfolds as the death toll mounts and Herold starts to believe his own grotesque creation. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 19, 2018
It is a horrifying parable, with chilling moments, although the story is structurally uneven. Read full review
80
Film Journal InternationalLisa Jo SagollaAug 1, 2018
Schwentke’s delectable drama is ultimately a keen indictment of the stereotypical German affinity for efficiency and the sense of community born of bonding together in the hurting of others. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJul 26, 2018
The Captain, Robert Schwentke’s harrowing World War II psychodrama, isn’t what you would call enjoyable, exactly. More accurately, it compels our attention with a remorseless, gripping single-mindedness, presenting Naziism as a communicable disease that smothers conscience, paralyzes resistance and extinguishes all shreds of humanity. Read full review
80
Screen DailyWendy IdeJun 25, 2018
It’s a powerful, profoundly uncomfortable watch. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerAug 8, 2018
Does the man make the uniform, or does the uniform make the man? Schwentke's conclusion is as dark as you may fear. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeJul 25, 2018
The film is consistently beautiful to look at in an “industrial metal album cover” kind of way, pairing dimly lit, black-and-white cinematography and artfully composed mise-en-scéne. Read full review
70
Film ThreatBradley GibsonJul 27, 2018
The film-craft is high quality, with the passion and care taken evident. Schwentke brings the brutal winter during wartime to realistic life. If you have historical interest in deep details of the war, or are fascinated by psychopathic war criminals, this might be a film for you. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeJul 27, 2018
Few and far between are the movies...that actually implicate modern viewers in the evil, which is precisely what makes The Captain such a remarkable film. Not a great one, mind you — the movie starts out with a bang but swiftly falls into a kind of prolonged and distressingly outlandish tedium, and lodges there for the better part of its rather taxing running time — but a brave and uncompromising indictment of human nature, Teutonic or otherwise. Read full review
70
Village VoiceApril WolfeJul 24, 2018
Filmed in black and white in the wintry countryside of Görlitz, Germany, Schwentke’s vision of a man who would be posthumously named the Executioner of Emsland is chilling and yet, at times, almost farcical. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughSep 5, 2018
The Captain pretends to be a serious movie about the banality of evil; sometimes, despite itself, it is. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 7, 2018
The movie’s an artfully sustained guessing game, tense and rarely dull. It’s also afflicted with a jokey, jaunty tone as deliberate as it is limiting. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAug 9, 2018
Schwentke’s grim history lesson carries an undeniable propulsiveness. But it’s ultimately too ugly a story to be truly resonant. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJul 25, 2018
It’s too bleak to laugh at and too absurd to cry over. That it’s true adds another insanity-inducing element. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJul 24, 2018
The central premise is arresting, as is the style, but there's a lot more that could have been done with it than just show how one ill-defined individual instantly opts to join his country's lowest form of life. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJul 27, 2018
Outlandish as its action often is, The Captain is based on a true story. Schwentke’s film, though, has an allegorical/satirical axe to grind, and it more often than not frames the narrative in dark archetypal terms. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJul 25, 2018
In one fashion, Robert Schwentke proves to be too complicit with his protagonist, regarding evil and human banality as stimulation. Read full review
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