My Neighbor Adolf Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

My Neighbor Adolf Blu-ray Movie Review

Springtime for . . . ?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 14, 2026

Mel Brooks kinda sorta proved that Hitler could be funny in The Producers (not to mention The Producers), but Brooks of course is a comedian and rather adept at writing farces. My Neighbor Adolf admittedly never even tries for the giddy comic heights of a Brooks piece, but it struggles at times to maintain a consistent tone, either comedic or dramatic, as it essays a rather fascinating set up: an expat Holocaust survivor living "somewhere in South America" in the early sixties becomes convinced that the man who moves into a neighboring house is none other than Hitler himself, evidently "not quite dead yet". This foundational premise is fraught with potential, and if the film provides generally quite appealing showcases for co-stars David Hayman (as survivor Marek) and Udo Kier (as "is he or isn't he?", here ostensibly named Herman), the film never quite gels and has a tendency to get "stuck" in a kind of very odd morass that is neither laugh out loud funny nor overly suspenseful in terms of building up to "the big reveal".

The film begins in 1935 with a charming vignette documenting Marek's family and his wife's love of black roses, with the inevitable subtext being all of these people (including some darling children) will soon enough be consigned to concentration camps and, most likely, death. The film then segues forward three decades or so to find Marek as a sad senior living in near squalor in a dilapidated old house somewhere out in the rural South American countryside. Marek has planted some black roses on his property whose care and feeding seems to be his only real concern. Only one other house is around, and it's for sale, though it soon becomes obvious when a harridan German attorney named Frau Kaltenbrunner (Olivia Silhavy) starts asking about the place that Marek does not want anyone nearby. Unfortunately for Marek, Kaltenbrunner doesn't suffer unhelpful would be neighbors easily, and soon enough the moving trucks arrive, all manned by what might be called paradigms of Aryan Youth. The actual new resident of the house is initially not seen clearly, until, that is, the guy's German Shepherd breaks through the fence separating the properties, destroying part of Marek's prized rose bush and leaving a little fecal "present" to boot.

That sends Marek into a fit of pique where he confronts the new neighbor, only to recoil in shock when he knocks the guy's sunglasses off and sees two "piercing blue eyes" which Marek instantly recognizes. As was alluded to briefly in that aforementioned opening vignette, Marek was a chess champion, and it turns out he had briefly met Hitler in 1934 at a chess match, and he is absolutely convinced that "the eyes have it" (so to speak), something that is confirmed (in Marek's mind at least) by the fact the neighbor is evidently wearing a false beard, not to mention the fact that he's left handed and is an amateur painter. This all unfolds within the context of Mossad having just captured Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, and in fact the newspaper Marek uses to clean up Herman's dog's mess is emblazoned with news of that feat.

Things become even more tense when Marek insists Herman fix the fence, only to have Kaltenbrunner show up with property records to basically claim part of Marek's yard in the name of Lebensraum, or something like that (and I'd argue that's a funnier joke than anything in the actual film), meaning Marek's meaningful rose bush is actually on Herman's property. Why Marek doesn't just transplant the bush is never adequately explained, but that plot point then sets up several more interchanges between the pair, with the upshot that Marek begins spying on Herman while also engaging in several chess matches with him once he sees Herman with a chessboard in his front yard.

The screenplay unfortunately never seems to know quite what to do with this situation, and Marek repeatedly engages in truly stupid behavior that not only puts him at risk but which ends up having pretty devastating consequences for Herman as well. My Neighbor Adolf wants to use this heady formulation to make some kind of comment about healing from trauma and the loneliness of aging men, but the tone is about as wobbly as the tripod Marek attempts to assemble to hold the camera he buys to take pictures of Herman to hopefully prove to skeptical local Mossad agents what's actually going on.

My Neighbor Adolf Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

My Neighbor Adolf is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group's Contemporary Classics imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. There's not much technical information that I could find online (including at the IMDb, which has no real information as of the writing of this review), but this is an appealing looking digital capture that I'm assuming had a 2K DI. Cinematographer Radek Ladczuk has used Arri cameras on other films and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what was utilized here. The film has a somewhat tamped down palette, perhaps mirroring the "depleted" emotions of the two central characters, but there are still some really nicely suffused moments in the many outdoor scenes that pervade the story. Detail levels are quite expressive throughout the presentation, and close-ups have very precise renderings of everything from facial features to things like the obvious glue lines of Herman's beard. There are some either dimly lit or outright nighttime scenes where shadow detail is not especially fulsome.

My Neighbor Adolf Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

My Neighbor Adolf features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options. The film has a smattering of several languages, including German, Yiddish and Spanish, all with forced English subtitles, but the bulk of the film is actually in English (with optional subtitles). As mentioned above, a lot of the story takes place outside, and there is good use of the surround channels in the 5.1 mix for ambient environmental effects. Łukasz Targosz's score overtly references Klezmer at times and is presented with nice fidelity. All spoken material is delivered cleanly and clearly throughout.

My Neighbor Adolf Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:10)

My Neighbor Adolf Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Years ago in my guise as a musician I was hired to both play piano and "act" (such as I was able) in a play written by a guy whose grandmother had frequented Vienna coffee houses in the 1920s and who had bought a little portrait from some madman painter who would hawk his wares to people sipping their cappuccinos, a key plot point to the play's story. You can probably guess whom that was, though that perhaps subliminally may allude to the fact that Hitler's art is basically closely held by private collectors these days for probably obvious reasons. In just one of several kind of odd elisions My Neighbor Adolf makes, Herman's efforts at painting seem to be a major clue, until they supposedly aren't, only to have those efforts become central again late in the proceedings. There's undeniably interesting content here, but it's hobbled by a haphazard style that veers uneasily between whimsical (?) humor and more intense musings on letting go of past traumas. Somewhat ironically it's actually Yom ha Shoah (Holocaust Day of Remembrance) as this review is being written, and there are certainly undercurrents of "remembrance" (for better or worse) suffusing this story. Fans of Hayman and/or Kier should find enough here to warrant checking out the film, and this Blu-ray offers solid technical merits for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.