Apt Pupil (1998)

Average rating

(64%)

Starring:	Ian McKellen \| Brad Renfro \| Bruce Davison \| Elias Koteas \| David Schwimmer \| James Karen \| Heather McComb \| Ann Dowd \| Joshua Jackson \| Mickey Cottrell \| Michael Reid MacKay
Director:	Bryan Singer
Studio:	SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK
Run time:	107 mins
Genres:	Drama
Languages:	English
Dubbed:	German
Subtitles:	Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish
Released:	June 13, 2005
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Based on the novella by Stephen King, director Bryan Singer's follow-up to THE USUAL SUSPECTS is a harrowing psychological thriller about the relationship that forms between a boy and the neighbor he discovers is a Nazi war criminal. After a brief lesson in history class, star pupil Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) becomes obsessed with Hitler and his followers. Through extensive research, he discovers that the infamous Kurt Dussender (Sir Ian McKellen) has been hiding out, living a normal life in his own neighborhood. But instead of reporting Dussender to the authorities, Todd decides to use him to gain further knowledge...everything that the history books won't tell him. But who ends up using whom, and what happens when a susceptible young mind encounters true evil, leads to a surprising, taught, and unsettling suspense film.
Interested in the novella since he was 19, Singer worked closely with screenwriter Brandon Boyce to bring this compelling story to the screen. Filled with the same touches that are hallmarks of his previous films--careful editing, use of small spaces to evoke tense atmospherics, terrific cinematography, and stellar acting--the film is a disturbing exploration into the seductively dark side of human nature.

Rating of 4 stars out of 5

This drama outlines the terrible consequences of a gifted Californian teenager's obsession with the Holocaust and his strange relationship with a Nazi war criminal living in secret in his home town. It's the third film to use Stephen King's 1982 anthology Different Seasons as a source and the tale is almost the equal of its predecessors, Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption. King's chiller deals with the horror of human nature and melancholic dread, and Bryan Singer's adaptation keeps close to the author's original intentions, using smart visual fluency to suggest the appalling and shocking nature of the core story. Ian McKellen gives a stupendous performance as the former SS death-camp officer and the film provides unsettling, blood-curdling viewing that occasionally crosses the bad taste barrier.

Rating of 2 stars out of 5
Halliwell's Film Guide

An effective drama about the corruption caused by contact with evil, though it descends into horror-movie clichés towards the end.

Highest rated reviews

4 out of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Surprisingly bland version of good novella.

Northernsky from , 19th March, 2004

I was really looking forward to watching this after reading the novella on which it’s based some time ago, but some how the sense of tension and creeping outrage inherent in the written version just don’t seem to have made it onto the screen.

Brad Renfro plays a student who becomes obsessed with the holocaust and then just happens to recognise a Nazi Death camp Commandant on the bus one day.
He blackmails the old man, superbly played by Ian McKellan, into recounting his hideous deeds in the camps and gradually an uneasy bond is cemented.

The question is who are we more repulsed by? The war criminal who actually perpetrated the crimes or the dysfunctional student who gets a kick out of the recounting of them.

At the risk of sounding flippant at times I lost interest. What seemed fascinating in print quickly became tiresome on screen and the film dragged terribly in the middle, although it recovers toward the conclusion.

Overall it just seems too absurd to really engage. Who’d have thought such evil could be so bland.

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