YMMV / Conspiracy (2001)

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• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The moment in the film when the rest of the cast realizes in no uncertain terms both what is to happen and the real nature of Reinhard Heydrich qualifies as a micro-one, with him dropping the Faux Affably Evil Wicked Cultured act after his personal authority and power is met with the slightest of opposition and briefly displaying the vicious animal he really is at a heart, a monster without a hint of care at the feelings of other human beings:
    Heydrich: Dead men don't hump, dead women don't get pregnant. Death is the most reliable form of sterilization — put it that way.
  • Kritzinger provides an in-universe example, as he realizes that they have crossed the horizon as the attendees are departing the conference.
• Narm: The scene when Eichmann bitchslaps a younger SS soldier who is guarding the Wannsee House after the compound guards engage in a snowball fight near the end of the conference. This scene is intended to show Eichmann's cruelty but it is rather ridiculous and, to some extent, Eichmann is justified being angry for the guards' unprofessional conduct.
• Nightmare Fuel: The entire concept of the film is that one of the most heinous acts in history is discussed with no more fanfare than the average corporate meeting that bores you out of your mind, complete with useless political hacks and raging egos creating little more than noise pollution, displaying that these people aren't ridiculous supervillains with obvious evil displays, but ordinary educated humans treating other humans as not a target of violent rage but with the annoyance shown to vermin. The slightest sympathy you feel towards the marginally less evil Kritzinger stuck in a boardroom with genocidal fanatics only drives home the fact that these people, even the fanatics, are human beings whose only real difference to the viewer is the place and time they were born in. More specifically, Heydrich. While the film works to portray him accurately, that only makes him even more frightening. He's holding this entire meeting with the plan to kill millions of people, he has a plan for the killing, and he's proud of his plan. He outright brags about how many Jews his camps will kill on a daily basis like he's bragging about it being the production of a factory and considers it no more an important event than buying a house. Summed up perfectly in this brief exchange, delivered with the most chilling smile one can imagine:
  Luther: Do they [the Jews] even have a Hell?
  Heydrich: They do now: we provide it.
• Retroactive Recognition: A young Tom Hiddleston appears as an SS radio operator.
  • The actor playing Dr Leibbrandt - Ewan Stewart - was four years earlier the ill-fated first officer of the 'Titanic'.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: It's a dramatization of a historical event that ended in the genocide of millions, which is clear from the start. Every major character in the film is a heinous war criminal so morally bankrupt that there's no one left to root for. The only one who somewhat maintains audience sympathy for feeling they're crossing a line is blackmailed into submission by much scarier men. It concludes with the revelation that the discussion was entirely pointless and Heydrich was going to carry out the Holocaust anyway. Finally, most of the Nazis never received any comeuppance and either died during battles or airstrikes, or more commonly, went on to live uneventful lives after the war.

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