So says the wise old Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor who witnessed many atrocities and sought to bring one particularly evil Nazi to justice. But years have gone by, his spirit broken over the brutal murder of his wife, and death takes him mysteriously. For German journalist Jon Voight, reading this dead man's journal opens him up to a Nazi hunt, finding some shocking revelations along the way and finding his very existence in jeopardy as his life is threatened with several "convenient" accidents.Set right after the assassination of President Kennedy, this deals with evil powers attempting a return and more than determined to complete what they started. Flashbacks to the evils of the Holocaust show the genuine pleasures that S.S. officers took in torturing their Jewish prisoners before killing them, and surviving officer Maximilian Schell is the worst of them all. Voight realizes the evils of what he's dealing with right away, but this isn't a story he can sweep under the rug. Like Woodward and Bernstein with Watergate, he becomes obsessed with it.One of the powerful messages in this riveting political thriller is the warning that uncaptured enemies of the state can be more dangerous on the run than they were when at their height. The Odessa mission becomes about preventing the return of evil groups like this and warn other extremist groups that horrific terrors like this will be vigorously investigated and brought down. Considering that this was 27 years before 9/11, this message resonates today and makes this truly profound and nail biting. This is a different kind of cold war, combining several different styles of thrillers. Unlike "Marathon Man", which costarred Voight's "Midnight Cowboy" costar Dustin Hoffman, this is pretty much forgotten, but that doesn't make it any less memorable...and a must!

A movie based on Frederick Forsyth book ? A old movie with Jon Voight in the leading role ? A movie about World war 2 ? About Nazis ? Based on real life events ? Yes , yes , yes ! I was pretty excited for this movie , especially considering good (7.0) rating.Too bad that the final result is something totally dull and unexciting. The movie is long and moves slowly. What is worse is that it is completely predictable and lacks any tension or surprise. The dialogues aren't interesting. Well , to be honest nothing is interesting here.Jon Voight did a good job and there is a surprise twist near the end . It's quite a good twist. Too bad the rest of the movie sucks terribly. Good ending can't save a bad movie. I give it 2/10.

This thriller opens in 1963 with a brief prologue where we see Israeli intelligence officers discussing an Egyptian plan to launch a biochemical attack on Israel; the only thing the Egyptians require is a missile component being made in West Germany. The action then moves to West Germany where Peter Miller, a freelance reporter with an eye for a story, follows an ambulance only to discover it was just going to an old man who had committed suicide. The next day the investigating police officer gives Peter the old man's dairy thinking it might make a human interest story... it does far more than that though; it tells of how he had survived Riga concentration camp where he'd seen his wife killed at the orders of camp commandant Eduard Roschmann, the dairy goes on to allege that Roschmann is still alive having been given a new identity by an organisation known as ODESSA. Having read the dairy Miller is determined to find Roschmann and expose ODESSA; it soon becomes clear it reaches deep into the West German state and it isn't long before an attempt is made on his life. With few clues in Germany he heads to Vienna to see Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal; not long after that he is approached by Israeli intelligence; they have a plan to send him undercover into ODESSA; a dangerous task where exposure could mean death but success could destroy ODESSA.Most thrillers seem to be packed with action however this one keeps things tense with a feeling of almost constant danger; this means when the few action scenes do come they feel more intense. Jon Voight does a fine job as protagonist Peter Miller; it was good to have a thriller about Nazis where the hero is German; even if he isn't played by one! Maximilian Schell only has a fairly small role as Roschmann but he makes the character quite chilling due to the way he first denies having anything to do with the slaughter in Riga, then making out that it was nothing important then finally boasting of the greatness of the SS. The story is well told and kept me gripped from the moment we learnt the contents of the old man's dairy... just the time Miller got gripped by the story too! If there is a flaw it was the suddenness of the end and the way he managed to find Roschmann alone in a castle; still the story demanded that they be alone together for their final talk so that improbability can be forgiven. Overall this is definitely worth watching if you like your thrillers tense and don't demand nonstop action and special effects.

This film is remarkable on many levels, but two stand out: 1) the realistic portrayal of the events in Riga, wherein thousands of Jews were massacred by the Nazis, and 2) the fact that the "butcher" of these events in the film was not a fictional ploy but an actual SS officer named, as in the film, Rosschmann. The latter point is of interest, since the film provoked a world wide hunt for this murderer, who was located in South America, and who then fled to Paraguay where he died in 1977. The first part of the film is near perfect, though it gets more melodramatic in the latter part, with a number of unconvincing dramatic events added. One example: the journalist(Voight)attacking the burly professional hit man sent to kill him, and then actually winning a hand to hand struggle with him.