Bent (1997)

Set in 1930s Berlin. Although he has a lover (Brian Webber), a promiscuous gay man (Clive Owen) brings a handsome Nazi (Nikolaj Coster Waldau) home for sex. But it is the Night Of The Long Knives, a 48 hour period when Hitler orders a purge of all those he considered a danger to his power and the handsome Nazi was the lover of an important member of the Nazi elite that Hitler wanted eliminated to solidify his power. Although the Nazi is killed, the two other men manage to escape but are eventually caught and sent to a concentration camp. Based on the play by Martin Sherman (who adapted his play for the screen) and directed by Sean Mathias, a theatre director whose only film this is. I found the first half of the film compelling but once the movie arrives at Dachau, it stops dead in its tracks. After that, it's pretty much a dialogue between two characters, Clive Owen and Lothaire Bluteau as another gay prisoner but the (often repetitive) dialogue comes off as pretentious as if written by an untalented Samuel Beckett. The score is by Philip Glass. With Mick Jagger, Ian McKellen, Jude Law, Paul Bettany and Rachel Weisz.