It’s a Me, Dereko’s review published on Letterboxd:
I was really looking forward to this film and while I wouldn’t call it awful, I was definitely underwhelmed. There's a ton of potential here and Taika Waititi is clearly passionate about this story but it really only scratches the surface of what it could be. The humor is very repetitive, although I did think many of the jokes were chuckle-worthy. There were some semi-effective dramatic attempts and there is a surprising undercurrent of sweetness underneath the exterior of constant nazi jokes. The underlying message of the film is obviously important and the actors were mostly alright, although nothing I would consider award-worthy. The screenplay is inconsistent and I was bored through a lot of the first act. It picks up and I ended up enjoying the tongue in cheek proceedings enough to avoid hating it. There were some clever directorial choices but the presentation as a whole felt a bit bland for my taste and there were many points where it felt like I was watching the same scene on repeat. I suppose my main criticism of this film is how little it's aiming for. Maybe it waa going for a reflection on blind fanaticism and how dangerous it is, but this isn’t communicated particularly well and the message basically just comes off as "Nazis are bad." I'm fine with simplistic stories but there are so many films that have tackled this subject matter better.
On a side note, that Gestapo scene was genuinely great. It blended the smartly self-aware joke of everyone repeating “Heil Hitler” with the surprisingly effective tension of the kid’s attempt to keep the Jewish girl’s identity a secret. If the whole film had been onpar with that scene then I would have loved it.