Mr Kaplan

A downtrodden seventy-something Jewish man attempts to restore his pride by unmasking an elderly German beach bar owner as a Nazi war criminal.


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  • Director Álvaro Brechner
  • Producers Álvaro Brechner, Mariana Secco
  • Screenwriter Álvaro Brechner
  • With Hector Noguera, Nestor Guzzini, Rolf Becker
  • Uruguay-Spain-Germany 2014
  • 98 mins
  • Sales Memento Films International

Everyone deals with their late-life crisis and impending mortality differently. For 76-year-old Jacob Kaplan, a transplanted Jew in Uruguay who is frustrated with his humdrum life, ailing health and family uninterested in their fading cultural heritage, a solution – and potential salvation – suddenly appears: expose the suspicious elderly German beach bar owner as a Nazi war criminal, kidnap him and take him to Israel. Rising filmmaker Álvaro Brechner’s quixotic quest strikes plenty of comedic sparks from its bone-dry humour, taking great delight in the reinvigorated ingenuity and pride of its aging protagonist. Hector Noguera is deliciously gruff as Kaplan and forms a splendid double-act with Nestor Guzzini’s haplessly loyal chauffeur and disgraced ex-cop Contreras. Even more potently, the film never loses sight of the existential demons that haunt those on the run from their unresolved past and, ultimately, themselves.

Leigh Singer