When it comes to conquered civilians fighting back against the Nazis in the second world war, French resistance is what people remember. Yet it was the Czech resistance that achieved the most spectacular result: the 1942 assassination of leading Nazi Reinhard Heydrich in Prague by London-trained commandos of the exiled Czech government, who were parachuted in for the job. Heydrich was the district governor, a high-ranking SS officer and an architect of the Holocaust. The Germans’ reprisals were horrifyingly brutal: entire villages razed to the ground and thousands of civilians butchered – like the bombing of Guernica, it was a virtual psychological dummy run for genocidal ruthlessness.
This taut and claustrophobic thriller from the director and co-writer Sean Ellis reimagines Operation Anthropoid – as it was code-named – and it had me on the edge of my seat. Then, for the gruelling and vicious aftermath, it had me shrinking to the back of it. Cillian Murphy is excellent as the fiercely committed Josef Gabčík; Jamie Dornan does very well in the slightly more reticent role of his co-conspirator Jan Kubiš. An intelligent, tough, and gripping movie.
