For the last 50 years, armchair historians have mused about just how differently the 20th century would have unfolded had wannabe painter Adolf Hitler been taken more seriously as an artist. Would he have pursued his art and forsaken politics, to the eternal betterment of humankind? That is the tantalizing question behind Menno Meyjes Munich-set, Wiemar period drama that, unfortunately, deals in cliches in much the same way Hitler's art did.

John Cusack (who co-produced) stars as the eponymous Max Rothman, a well-off German-Jewish veteran of World War I who has returned from fighting for the Kaiser's cause minus an arm. Unable to pursue his love of painting, he has sublimated his desire into the promotion of all that is modern in the art world. We first see him planning an opening for a drunken George Grosz, an event that Max-a cynic-uses to hustle the rich into buying work he represents.

Simultaneously we are introduced to Noah Taylor's 30-year-old Adolf Hitler, himself a bitter veteran of the Great War. Hitler has none of the comforts Max takes for granted; where Max has a lovely wife (Molly Parker), a mistress (Leelee Sobieski) children, a beautiful home and rich parents, Hitler is reduced to eating at soup kitchens and scrounging for the money to buy paints. After they meet, Max takes an interest in the arrogant painter, asking to see his work.

When an officer at the army barracks where Hitler lives notes Hitler's anti-Semitic, anti-Treaty of Versailles point of view, the officer suggests that the army will pay Hitler's expenses should he take a public speaking course. Hitler accepts, but the film speculatively suggests he does so only to get the money to buy paints.

When Max and Hitler finally get together, via Max's inadvertently ludicrous invitation, "Hitler can I buy you a glass of lemonade?", the film descends completely into the realm of speculation and the clichés begin to rise to the surface. Whereas Max is the ultimate modernist, Hitler is a traditionalist given to saying things like, "Art should only reflect the eternal values and natural laws." That's cliched enough, but when Max sees Hitler's work, he suggests that Hitler has a certain something, and then tells him to "go as deep as you possibly can." And it gets worse (not to mention that one of the only completed works we see by Hitler is of the head of a dog that would look very nice on black velvet).

The one nicely judged bit of irony in the film is Max's serious interest in Hitler's drawings of things that will serve as the visual aspects of the Third Reich-the fascist architecture, uniforms and symbols of Nazism, all of which the film has Hitler himself designing. True modernist that he is, Max sees this as cutting edge, though by this point Hitler has become unhinged and has determined that "politics is the one art and I am the new avant-garde."

Cusack is good as Max, hinting at the cynicism and despair that lurk just beneath his nice-guy demeanour, but Taylor steals the show, playing a character most actors would run away from. His spittle-laced speeches/rants are truly frightening, yet Meyjes' writing and Taylor's acting don't shy away from showing us his obvious intellectual abilities. If only Meyjes' writing was less cliché-ridden in other respects.