In Empire Strikes Back, Luke is about to enter a cave, he asks Yoda what is in there. The answer, "Only what you bring with you."
This is really at the heart of The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot. The tale follows Calvin Barr, played in youth by Aiden Turner and in age by Sam Elliott, both of whom give outstanding performances. As a young man he is tasked with hunting down and killing Hitler, as an old man he's drawn into hunting down and killing The Bigfoot.
But is that really what this film is about? I saw it as an allegory on aging, vulnerability and Alzheimer's but reading other reviews it clearly means different things to different people. From an allegory on America's fight against Fascism and then Communism, through a man rewriting his past, a weak man trying to give the mistakes in his life meaning, to a story about a man who genuinely killed Hitler and then Bigfoot. There are many other reviews that offer different readings on this film. This movie seems to hold up a mirror to the audience and you put your own meaning on it.
What isn't up for debate are the fantastic performances of the cast, from Elliott and Turner, through to Larry Miller as Calvin's brother and Caitlin Fitzgerald as Maxine, Calvin's lost love.
It's a mesmerising film and you'll debate what it's trying to say for a long time afterwards. It's definitely worth a viewing or two.
