Apt pupil (1998)

Bryan Singer directs this thriller. The movie is made in 1998. Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro are the most important part of the cast, McKellen as Mr. Dussander and Renfro as Todd Bowden. The film is based on a story by Stephen King. Todd Bowden, a sixteen-year-old student is very interested in the Holocaust. He discovers that an old man, who lives in the neighbourhood, had been a Nazi war criminal. Because of his fascination, he decides to blackmail the old man, Mr. Dussander. He obliges him to tell him everything they don’t talk about at school. Dussander has to do it because Todd said he would go to the government with his information. The next months, Todd often visits Dussander. He listens to the stories about the cruelties and asks questions. Todd gets nightmares of the stories; he dreams that he is a prisoner in a Nazi camp. One day he buys a carnival costume for Dussander and obliges him to wear it. First Dussander refuses to look like a Nazi again but he has to. Todd lets him walk and salute like a real Nazi but quickly Dussander can’t stop anymore with acting like a Nazi. Todd keeps visiting Dussander, although there happen some gruesome things. Both of them get weird cruel ideas. Mr. Dussander puts a cat in his oven and Todd kills a pigeon with a basketball. Mr. Dussander begins to look like the evil guy because he manipulates Todd and acts like his grandfather at school. In the end, Dussander is having a drink with a poor man when he almost kills the guy. Then he lets Todd come to his house and finish the job. Dussander is brought to the hospital where the FBI comes to arrest him. He commits suicide. Todd graduates but someone from school discovers that Dussander is a Nazi and not his grandfather. He comes to Todd’s house but Todd uses the things he has learnt from Dussander to scare him. My opinion: Ian McKellen acts very well. He looks friendly in the beginning but evil in the end. Brad Renfro also did a good job but not exceptional. I didn’t like the story because I don’t like war stories in general. There are some horrible scenes, when Dussander puts the cat in the oven and Todd kills the pigeon. The scenes about the concentration camps were less shocking.