MEET THE HITLERS REVIEW

A couple of things got on my nerves while watching a documentary called Meet the Hitlers last night, least of which it wasn’t a sequel to Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles.

I’m not even sure if the term documentary applies to movies like this. It has a film crew following a bunch of people whose last names are Hitler. It’s not like we’re seeing a town unravel like in Harlan County USA, or watching war criminals celebrate their atrocities in the Act of Killing. This movie has a teenager trying on homecoming dresses while her friends blandly make “Hitler goes to the prom” jokes. Har har. The only thing that dunks it further into mediocrity is when she gives the “I’m just me — and it doesn’t matter if my last name is Hitler” speech. Cue the shot of insulin.

Worse yet, there’s another story of a reporter who’s been working on a book the last ten years. Turns out he’s discovered the whereabouts of Hitler’s surviving bloodline (three grand-nephews) in New York (close enough to Argentina). His eagerness to get it published is matched only by his pathetic attempts to get the three anonymous brothers to go public with it. But they won’t. Because they don’t want the problems that go hand in hand with being the relatives of Earth’s greatest maniac. Imagine that.

So this dick reporter goes to pubs where they may frequent and neighbors (one of which is a Holocaust survivor) and asks the $64,000 question: “did you know _______ who lives a few doors from you is the last surviving relative of Adolf Hitler? How does that make you feel?” How about asking them if they own pitchforks, tar, and feathers while he’s at it. What an asshole.

Which leads us to the next Petrie dish with shoes in my little review here. Heath Campbell loves Hitler. His bromance doesn’t just include shaving his mustache into an annoying little thumbprint above his lip, but he’s named his kids after the National Socialist Party’s MVP roster as well: Adolf Hitler Campbell, Eva Braun Campbell, Heinrich Hons Campbell and JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell. That’s right, Aryan Nation. Heath is such a visionary, he named one of his kids after his favorite organization. If I would have known that was acceptable, I would’ve named my daughter Fable Costco Wholesale Club Zimmermann.

At any rate, Heath had his kids taken away from him by social services (file under “No Shit, Sherlock”), a move that seems to have only entrenched him deeper into Nazi philosophy. There was a point in the movie where he starts going off: “This is AMERICA!” he says shaking with anger, “a place where people just aren’t allowed to force themselves onto your property and take away your loved ones for no good reason.” If only the Nazis were in charge, Heath. Then that kind of shit would never, ever happen in a thousand years.