Operation Finale (2018)

Operation Finale is a historical drama (based on a true story) about how a team of secret Israeli agents captured the former high-ranking Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires and transported him to Israel in 1960. Here is some basic information about this drama which premiered in 2018:

** Director: Chris Weitz

** Writer: Matthew Orton

** Run time: 122 minutes

The cast includes the following:

** Oscar Isaac as Peter Z. Malkin (1927-2005) – a Mossad agent

** Ben Kingsley as Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) – a former high-ranking Nazi official

** Joe Alwyn as Klaus Eichmann (born 1936) – Adolf Eichmann’s oldest son

** Peter Strauss as Lothar Hermann (1901-1974) – a refugee from Germany who immigrated to Argentina in 1938

** Haley Lu Richardson as Sylvia Hermann (born 1942) – Hermann’s daughter

** Nick Kroll as Rafi Eitan (born 1926) – a Mossad agent – in charge of the Israeli team

** Michael Aronov as Zvi Aharoni (1921-2012) – a Mossad agent

** Lior Raz as Isser Harel (1912-2003) – director of Mossad 1952-1963

** Melanie Laurent as Dr Hanna Elian – a female doctor who works with Mossad – and Peter Malkin’s former girlfriend

Since this drama is based on a true story, the basic facts are part of the public record. They are not a secret. Therefore I feel free to mention some of them in this review.

While this drama is based on a true story, it is not a documentary film. It is a dramatized version of events. Not everything happened exactly as shown here. But the basic story is true.

Adolf Eichmann was born in 1906. In the 1930s, he was a high-ranking official in the Nazi apparatus. During the war, he was in charge of transporting Jews and other “undesirable” peoples to death camps in Eastern Europe. Therefore he is sometimes described as “the architect of the final solution.”

In 1945, when the war ended, Eichmann was captured by American forces, but they did not know his real identity and he managed to escape. For a while, he lived under a false name in the north of (West) Germany. In 1950, he managed to escape to Latin America. He settled in Argentina where his family joined him in 1952: his wife Veronika (aka Vera) and three children (a fourth child was born in Buenos Aires in 1955).

Eichmann was identified by Lothar Hermann, a refugee from Germany, whose daughter Sylvia dated Klaus Eichmann for a while. When Sylvia talked about Klaus, Lothar Hermann realized that Klaus was the oldest son of Adolf Eichmann, at the time one of the most-wanted men in the world.

Lothar Hermann passed this information on to Fritz Bauer, a public prosecutor in the West German state of Hesse. Bauer passed this information on to Mossad in Israel.

In 1960, Mossad decided to act on this information. A team of agents was sent to Buenos Aires to investigate the case. When Eichmann’s identity was confirmed, it was decided to capture him and bring him back to Israel.

In this drama, we follow the operation. First, the team is set up in Israel. Later, the team travels to Argentina and starts to investigate. Finally, Eichmann is captured and after a few days, during which he is kept in a safe house, he transported to Israel.

Once in Israel, Eichmann was placed in a court of law and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The trial took place in 1961. He was found guilty. He was executed in 1962. However, the trial of 1961 and the execution of 1962 are not included in this drama, because it ends when the Israeli plane with Eichmann on board takes off from Buenos Aires airport.

What do reviewers say about this historical drama? Here are the results of three review aggregators:

58 per cent = Meta (the critics)

70 per cent = Meta (the audience)

60 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)

71 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)

65 per cent = IMDb

The story is important and interesting, but the ratings are not impressive, as you can see. You can also see that the general audience loves this drama than the professional critics.

I think the general audience is too generous. I have to side with the professional critics. This drama is not great; it is not even good; it is average. Why do I say this? Because there are some flaws:

# 1. Klaus Eichmann and his friends did not come to the safe house in Buenos Aires just as the team was about to leave with Eichmann for the airport. In fact, they never came to the safe house. A historical fact has been changed for dramatic purposes.

# 2. Klaus Eichmann and his friends did not come to the airport just as the plane was about to take off with Eichmann on board. They arrived half an hour after the plane had left the airport. A historical fact has been changed for dramatic purposes.

# 3. In the drama, the Mossad team includes a female doctor whose name is Hanna Elian. She is Peter Malkin’s former girlfriend. This fact causes some friction. The real Mossad team included a male doctor whose name was Yonah Elian. A historical fact has been changed for dramatic purposes.

# 4. There is a serious problem with the language that is spoken in the drama. It is unfortunately a common problem for US movies which take place outside the US. In Israel, many people speak Hebrew. In Argentina, many people speak Spanish. When German people come together, they will speak German, no matter where they are. But in this drama, almost all dialogue is in English! This is not realistic! This is a gross violation of historical truth!

As you can see, there are some flaws in this drama. I have to remove two stars because of these flaws. Therefore I think it deserves a rating of three stars.

PS # 1. Isser Harel, Peter Malkin and Zvi Aharoni all wrote a first-hand account of how Eichmann was captured in Argentina in 1960. They were published in 1975, 1990 and 1997.

PS # 2. The following article about the case is available online: Patrick Sauer, “The True Story of Operation Finale,” Smithsonian, 28 August 2018.

PS # 3. Visit the website “History vs. Hollywood” for more details about fact and fiction in this drama.

*****

This drama is available on Netflix and on Blu-ray

*****