But rather than focus on the explanations, evasions and lies of the man who oversaw the logistics of the Holocaust, the film spends at least half it's running time examining the life of Captain Avner Less, the young Israeli police officer tasked with interrogating Eichmann. Director Robert Young clearly believed there was dramatic mileage to be had in exploring the conflict of interest provoked by Less's assignment. Here was a Jew whose father had been one of the six million murdered by the Nazis attempting to draw a confession from the man whose signature had sent him to the death camp.But what we get is a turgid plod through the stresses and strains that Less's task imposes on him and his family, intermittently interrupted by questioning of the prisoner which never does more than scrape the surface.
Irredeemably evil though Eichmann was, he did have something of value to tell us about the thinking behind such a monstrous crime but we never get to hear more than the headlines. It's as if director Young took the decision that he's already guilty so why bother hearing his excuses.
In 2001 Stanley Tucci was icily convincing as Eichmann in the tv movie 'Conspiracy,' a recreation of the 1942 conference which devised the Final Solution. EICHMANN should have provided the other bookend to that story but it simply falls flat, despite a fine performance from Thomas Kretschmann in the title role.
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