is a historical war thriller that dramatizes one of the most daring and consequential missions of World War II: the assassination of SS General Reinhard Heydrich . Directed and co-written by Sean Ellis , the film focuses on the true story of Operation Anthropoid , the secret mission to eliminate the "Butcher of Prague," who was Hitler’s third-in-command and a primary architect of the Holocaust. Plot Overview
Filmed on location in Prague, the movie is noted for its period-accurate costumes and environments. Director Sean Ellis utilized a "shaky-cam" aesthetic and a muted, sepia-toned palette to evoke a sense of gritty realism and constant dread.
The film explores the moral dilemma of the mission—the knowledge that killing one high-ranking official would inevitably lead to the execution of thousands of innocent civilians in retaliation.
A tense and slow-burning first act focused on the paranoia and technical difficulties of living as secret operatives in a city under brutal occupation.
Reviewers from The Hollywood Outsider and Roger's Movie Nation called it a "magnificent" and "riveting" tribute to the resistance. Cillian Murphy’s performance, in particular, received high marks for its quiet intensity. Anthropoid (2016)
Critics were somewhat divided on the film's pacing, though most praised its final act:
The film follows two exiled Czechoslovak soldiers, (Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan), who are parachuted into their Nazi-occupied homeland in December 1941. With minimal intelligence and the help of a dwindling local resistance, they must plan and execute the assassination of Heydrich in the heart of Prague. The story is divided into three distinct phases:
