Apt Pupil (1998)

A boy blackmails his neighbor after suspecting him to be a Nazi war criminal.

Director:

Bryan Singer

Writers:

Stephen King (novel), Brandon Boyce (screenplay)

Stars:

Ian McKellen, Brad Renfro, Joshua Jackson

6 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Brad Renfro	...	Todd Bowden
Ian McKellen	...	Kurt Dussander
Joshua Jackson	...	Joey
Mickey Cottrell	...	Sociology Teacher
Michael Reid MacKay	...	Nightmare Victim
Ann Dowd	...	Monica Bowden
Bruce Davison	...	Richard Bowden
James Karen	...	Victor Bowden
Marjorie Lovett	...	Agnes Bowden
David Cooley	...	Gym Teacher
Blake Anthony Tibbetts	...	Teammate
Heather McComb	...	Becky Trask
Katherine Malone	...	Student
Grace Sinden	...	Secretary
David Schwimmer	...	Edward French

Storyline

Neighborhood boy Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) discovers that an old man living on his block named Arthur Denker (Sir Ian Mackellan) is a Nazi war criminal. Bowden confronts Denker and offers him a deal: Bowden will not go to the authorities if Denker tells him stories of the concentration camps in World War II. Denker agrees and Bowden starts visiting him regularly. The more stories Bowden hears, the more it affects his personality.

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Plot Keywords:

nazi | blackmail | murder | cat | war criminal | 

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Taglines:

If you don't believe in the existence of evil, you've got a lot to learn.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for scenes of strong violence, language and brief sexuality

Details

Country:

USA France

Language:

English German

Release Date:

23 October 1998 (USA)

Also Known As:

El aprendiz

Filming Locations:

USA

Box Office

Budget:

$14,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$3,583,151, 25 October 1998

Gross USA:

$8,863,193

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$8,863,193

Company Credits

Production Co:

Phoenix Pictures, Bad Hat Harry Productions, Canal+ Droits Audiovisuels

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS (8 channels) Dolby SR

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The main death camp in which Dussander is quoted as serving is stated to be "Patin", which was not an actual extermination camp used by the Nazis. Based on Dussander's descriptions, the camp most closing matching his narrative is "Maly Trostenets", located near Minsk, and mainly used to kill Russian Jews, as well as Jews deported from Germany.

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Goofs

Mr. French shows Todd a newspaper headline, part of which reads "...Camp Commandant Lead Double Life...". The correct spelling for the past-tense of "lead" is "led."

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Quotes

[Todd is trying to forge his father's signature for a reply to a letter from school]
Kurt Dussander: You're messing things up with that carbon paper.
Todd Bowden: Yeah, what do you know about it?
Kurt Dussander: [slaps his hand down on Todd's shoulder, Todd gets up and Dussander takes his place] Here, out of the way. I was forging documents before your parents were born.

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Connections

Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Fictional Nazis in Movies (2014)

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Soundtracks

Too Much Of Nothing
Written by Paul Nelson, Sue Fink & Carl Verheyen
Performed by Dante Marchi

User Reviews

Groan

I sincerely hope Imdb is merely falsely reporting a rumor that Stephen King sold the film rights to Apt Pupil for $1, because Apt Pupil is one of the worst screen adaptations of a King novel. It ranks up there with Children of the Corn and, perhaps ironically worst of all, King's "Maximum Overdrive."

Apt Pupil is one of the most chilling King works I've ever read with only Children of the Corn being scarier. It's a cat-and-mouse story of a cocky, smart American kid who discovers that man who lives near him is actually a fugitive NAZI--one of the evil high-ranking officers that has thwarted the authorities for decades. But instead of doing the obvious right thing and turning him in, the boy engages in a deadly quid-pro-quo game of blackmail: he tells "Arthur Denker"--real name Kurt Dussander--to tell him everything that is too explicit for the war books and magazines.

The novel has a very dark ending, which you'd expect when a person makes a critically terrible decision and then tries endlessly to cover it up. This movie almost completely sanitizes it. Further, Brad Renfro was a horrible miscast as Todd Bowden. He acts nothing like the Bowden in the book. The pacing for this film was all wrong and never allows any of the characters to sufficiently develop. Only Ian McKellan and the well-intentioned efforts of David Schwimmer save this film from being a total skunk.