The Holcroft Covenant (1985)

40 years after the end of WWII, the son (Michael Caine) of a high ranking Nazi General (Alexander Kerst) is made aware of a covenant signed by his father and two of his comrades before they died in a murder/suicide pact. The covenant makes an incredible amount of money (in the billions) available to be used to make reparations for their crimes. But the son's mother (Lilli Palmer) distrusts the document and urges her son to have nothing to do with it. Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum (the Bourne franchise) and directed by John Frankenheimer, this is another of those "Nazis reaching from beyond the grave" scenarios, perhaps the most famous of these being THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL. While its plot is not as ludicrous as BRAZIL, it's still pretty far fetched. It's tricky to make something like this believable and at one time, Frankenheimer would have seemed the man to do it. In the 1960s, he did two of the best conspiracy thrillers, MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and SEVEN DAYS IN MAY. But by the 1980s, he'd pretty much lost his way and his output was pretty mediocre. It doesn't help that the audience is always one step ahead of Caine's character who seems pretty gullible. With the exception of Lilli Palmer, the acting ranges from indifferent (Anthony Andrews) to downright enervated (Victoria Tennant). With Mario Adorf, Michael Lonsdale and Shane Rimmer.