John Rabe
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Metascore
57 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 15 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

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  • Starring: Anne Consigny, Daniel Brühl, Steve Buscemi, Ulrich Tukur
  • Summary: Based on a true story, John Rabe tells the story of a German businessman who rescued more than 200,000 civilians during the so-called “Nanking Massacre” in China. (Strand Releasing)

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 15
  3. Negative: 0 out of 15
  1. Movieline
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    80
    Gallenberger tells Rabe’s story deftly, establishing essential elements of the man’s personality in subtle shorthand.
  2. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: Steve Ramos
    60
    Boasting impressive production values, engaging storytelling and a standout lead performance by German star Ulrich Tukur, John Rabe will receive enthusiastic word of mouth from select arthouse audiences.
  3. NPR
    Reviewed by: Mark Jenkins
    60
    Triumph seems the wrong note for a feature film about mass murder. Yet Gallenberger insists on an old-school historical melodrama, with the darkest of terrors leavened by humor, tenderness and even romance. It's only the terror that rings true.
  4. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Stephen Garrett
    60
    Packs a forceful punch.

See all 15 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. PHL
    8
    Based on a true story, this is a moving and powerful movie. At times difficult to watch such cruelty, it's uplifting to see the humanity that was exhibited by John Rabe during a horrible war. Perhaps it would take Steven Spielberg to comment on it and compare his heroism to Schindler's for the movie to get more attention and wider distribution.… Expand
  2. mario_leonardo
    8
    It is a interesting movie, a great history about a good man, who doesn't matters leave his comfortably life in order to save people who don't know. In some parts is a little slow, but have great a impact moments.… Expand
  3. JaneG.
    8
    An excellent film. Worth the 134 minutes viewing.An important docudrama done with taste and class.
  4. jeremyp
    7
    The rape of Nanking has been visited quite often of late. This movie attempts to focus one John Rabe, a Nazi businessman in Nanking, but ends up, inevitably in focusing on the small group of westerners who do their heroic best to save as many chinese as possible from the ravenous Japanese army. The atrocities take a back seat to the machinations of the group to be rescuers while surrounded by barbarians. As a Nazi Rabe manages to use his countries alliance with Japan to keep a safe zone open to 200,000 chinese. An ironic image is of hundreds of them huddled under a vast flag emblazoned with a Swastika, as it signals the Japanese to bomb elsewhere. Inadvertently they are saved by the emblem of a regime that personified the genocide of innocents.

    For some reason the other hero in the story Minnie Vautrin, an american missionary responsible for saving 20,000 young women from rape, is presented as a French woman, who risks everyones life in the zone by hiding chinese soldiers, expressly against the charter for the zone. In the end the atrocity of Nanking gets short shrift; rape is mentioned but only as a menace, the dead are mostly soldiers, and the postscript tells us Rabe died a pauper in Germany shortly after the war, unsung. That postscript might make a more fascinating story.    … Expand

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