December 27, 2002 |  Several people who really should know better have condemned Max without actually bothering to see it. Indeed, I know of at least one respected critic who swore she would never subject herself to writer-director Menno Meyjes' audaciously speculative drama, because she assumed any film that attempted to “humanize” Adolf Hitler – that tried to render him as a flesh-and-blood human, not a fire-and-brimstone monster – would be an insufferable outrage.

All things considered, it's probably for the best that people like my esteemed colleague avoid Meyjes' film. Think about it: If they respond with such impassioned disapproval to just a bare-bones synopsis, the film itself would have to be some kind of masterpiece to be at least minimally acceptable to them. And Max , despite the best efforts of everyone involved, is no masterpiece.

It is, however, an admirably intelligent and ambitious piece of work, darkly clever yet grimly purposeful as it considers the ironies of history and the vagaries of happenstance.

More important, it is not so much “about Hitler” as it is about a fateful intersection of lives in the wake of The Great War. Two men, each with the potential to profoundly affect the other, meet in 1918 Munich. Unfortunately – tragically, inadvertently – the wrong guy turns out to be the dominant influence.

As Max Rothman, an art dealer at the forefront of the avant-garde, John Cusack hits all the right notes with a perfect-pitch performance. Lacing smooth self-assurance with nimble intelligence and self-deprecating wit, Cusack plays Rothman as an avowed cynic who's nonetheless deeply enthusiastic, if not fanatical, about the world-changing capacity of modern art. Since he lost an arm in battle, he can never paint his own masterpieces. But he champions artists such as Max Ernst and George Grosz, claiming their visionary works vividly illustrate the horrors of a world war that must never inspire a sequel.

But Hitler (Noah Taylor), an embittered and impoverished German army corporal, has nothing but snarling contempt for the “decadence” of Expressionism and other modes of Modernism. In Hitler's view, art should aspire to an ennobling ideal, not descend into nightmarish symbolism.

When Hitler rails against “degenerate art,” Rothman is richly amused, and not a little condescending. And yet, when Hitler asks – with equal measures of pathetic eagerness and stubborn pride – for comments about his own artwork, the art gallery owner is critical but encouraging.

We're never entirely sure if Rothman is motivated by guilt – he returned from the war to wealth, a loving family and a sexy mistress (Leelee Sobieski), while Hitler came home to nothing – or a genuine appreciation for Hitler's raw talent. And that ambiguity, along with Hitler's blithe willingness to overlook Rothman's Jewishness, makes the relationship between the two men all the more dramatically and emotionally intriguing.

Rothman insists Hitler must draw upon repressed memories of battlefield horrors to fuel his creativity. But the corporal cannot, or will not, reveal too much of himself in his work. Besides, he's proving more adept in a different medium – rabble-rousing. Under the shrewd tutelage of an army propaganda officer (Ulrich Thomsen), Hitler is honing his crude skills as a master orator, swaying discontented crowds with his rabidly nationalist and anti-Semitic screeds.

“Politics is the new art,” Hitler proudly proclaims. Hoffman demurs: “If you were to put the same amount of energy into your art as you bring to your speaking, you'd be on to something.”

And with that, the options are established: Will Hitler ever return to the canvas? Or will he continue to evolve into history's most horribly potent performance artist?

Meyjes, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter ( The Color Purple ) making his feature directing debut, is a tad too obvious in constructing the central conflict in Max . And it's not simply a matter of his being unable to make us forget, even momentarily, about Hitler's ultimate choices. The impact of some scenes is blunted by heavy-handed dialogue (“Hitler, you're a hard man to like!”), and the storytelling feels too self-consciously schematic in the movie's final third. It doesn't help much that, here and there, Meyjes takes minor yet distracting liberties with history. (In the real world, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, not 1918.)

Even so, there's no denying that much of this “what-if” fable is irresistibly fascinating.

Meyjes takes a risk by not giving us the all-too-familiar Hitler iconography – Noah Taylor plays the part without the mustache – but the gamble pays off. We're not distracted by the infamous mask of evil, so we can concentrate on the man behind that mask. Taylor occasionally overplays the misanthropy. But he's spot-on when it comes to conveying the contradictory facets – desperation, self-doubt, determination and dementia -- of a man who's determined to leave his mark on the world one way or another.