ou will never catch that boy.” In 1914, young Dietrich Bonhoeffer spends his time playing games with his older brother Walter (Patrick Molleken), running from room to room and in the yard of their sizable estate. It’s a carefree fantasy, and one looked back upon fondly, that couldn’t possibly prepare adult Dietrich (Jonas Dassler) for the horrors of war to come. In present day Bavaria, Germany (1945), he’s trapped on a bus, fearing for his life as the vehicle journeys through a bleak, gray landscape bombarded by the sounds of planes dropping munitions overhead. As he scribbles in a bible, he remembers striking events from his childhood, including in 1918 when Walter departs for the front – and when he returns in a casket.

Though Bonhoeffer will prove to be a significant figure, particularly as his role in WWII provides him opportunities for historical immortality, the structuring of this biography leaves a lot to be desired. The timeline jumps around incessantly, desperate to spice up a narrative that definitely doesn’t need the artificial jumbling. At certain points, it’s needlessly disruptive (the finale is where it’s most unwanted), abruptly cutting between his detainment in Buchenwald as a political prisoner, to his education at Union Seminary in New York City in 1930, to many other personal milestones. The goal is to visualize a handful of the highlights of his life that shaped his integral involvement in major events, yet the editing meddling only serves to distract, to take away from the gravity of his severer trials.

It’s not exactly unexpected; as the picture details Dietrich’s path into the increasingly turbulent politics of Germany, it firstly chronicles his upbringing and his involvement in the American church system, demonstrating tremendously generic interactions and conversations. Many of them serve to illustrate the crushing racism of the era, but they’re conducted in extremely routine ways; profound observations are witnessed, yet they’re far from original. “Your eyes just haven’t been opened yet.”

The purpose of these flashbacks is to show how Bonhoeffer’s embracing of religious ideals initially blinds him to the underlying apprehensions of Hitler’s rapid infiltration and rise among the nation’s citizenry. After all, he was completely unaware of how Black populations were treated in the States. It’s entirely possible that that same ignorance can lead to sweeping reforms in his home country, transforming normalcy and serenity into a land of unrecognizable fear and hatred. “People are falling prey to nationalism and paranoia.”

It’s endlessly relevant, even if reiterative and blunt; the message is powerful yet commonplace. Its importance, however, doesn’t necessitate the direction of the film, which regularly fails to set itself apart from other pictures that previously tackled similar themes. In fact, “Bonhoeffer” draws quite a number of parallels to “The Cardinal,” not just in the testing of a man’s faith, but also with the connections to the Nazis’ escalating influence and the central character’s pushback, as well as an overlong runtime (neither film moves with much haste). Still, this endeavor at least momentarily dispenses with rote theology as an unwavering solution for the lead, which is refreshing. “I can’t keep pretending that praying and teaching is enough.”

Problematically, despite the project’s engaging interest in navigating the ways in which organized religion can be twisted into propaganda and political manipulation, charting Bonhoeffer’s pastorate downfall, it’s undeniably formulaic. As it spells everything out with not a hint of subtlety (powerful words, for the most part), having roles trade dialogue that leaves nothing to the imagination, it only grows more and more straightforward. Its thematic puissance, especially as the titular persona heads to England to motivate fellow clergymen into ministerial warfare, is no match for cinematic patterns. Even when Dietrich becomes embroiled in spy thriller tropes, the proceedings gain very little uniqueness or artistry. “This is a knife to the heart of the nation.”

For a movie that could have been both dramatic and chilling, it’s instead strangely unaffecting. Genuinely emotional shots are fleeting, even when stark injustice and violence enter the frame; brief sequences of daring and death are curiously lacking in excitement, though Dietrich’s eventual transition from pacifist to renegade to assassin is ever so slightly rousing. The counterparts to current events in the United States are likewise alarming and mortifying, while the music is enjoyable and the commentary is potent, but “Bonhoeffer” is the kind of historical biography that struggles to set itself apart, to be memorable beyond its perfunctory history lesson. It is, oddly, like a boring version of “Valkyrie,” stripped of Hollywood exaggeration and zest. “You’re talking to pastors, not killers.”

– Mike Massie