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Aptpupilposter

Apt Pupil is a 1998 American psychological thriller film based on the 1982 novella of the same name by Stephen King. The film was directed by Bryan Singer and stars Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro. Set in the 1980s in southern California, the film tells the story of high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro), who discovers a fugitive Nazi war criminal, Kurt Dussander (McKellen), living in his neighborhood under a pseudonym. Bowden, obsessed with Nazism and the Holocaust, persuades Dussander to share his stories, and their relationship stirs malice in each of them. Singer has called Apt Pupil "a study in cruelty", with Nazism serving as a vehicle to demonstrate the capacity of evil.

The film was released in the United States and Canada in October 1998 to mixed reviews and made under $9 million. The main actors won several minor awards for their performances.

Plot[]

In Southern California in 1984, 16-year-old high school student Todd Bowden discovers that his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker, is Kurt Dussander—a former Nazi concentration camp commandant who is now a fugitive war criminal. Todd, fascinated with Nazi atrocities perpetrated during World War II, blackmails Dussander, forcing him to share disturbing stories of what it was like working at Nazi extermination camps and how it felt to participate in genocide.

Todd purchases an SS uniform from a costume shop and forces Dussander to wear it. As he spends more time with Dussander, his schoolwork suffers, he loses interest in his girlfriend, and he conceals his bad grades from his parents. Dussander begins blackmailing Todd in return, forcing him to work to restore his grades by threatening to expose the subterfuge and his dalliance with Nazism to his parents. Dussander even poses as Todd's grandfather and goes to an appointment with Todd's school counselor Edward French. Talking about the war crimes affects both the old man and the young boy. An intoxicated Dussander tries and fails to kill a cat with his gas oven. Dussander also takes pride in Todd's remarkable turnaround, going from near-dropout to straight As in a matter of weeks.

One night, Dussander tries to kill a homeless person who earlier had seen him in the uniform. When Dussander has a heart attack, he calls Todd, who finishes the killing, cleans up, and calls an ambulance for Dussander. At the hospital, Dussander is recognized by a death camp survivor sharing his room. He is arrested and an extradition to Israel is arranged. Todd graduates as valedictorian and gives a speech about Icarus, saying, "All great achievements arose from dissatisfaction. It is the desire to do better, to dig deeper, that propels civilization to greatness." The scene is juxtaposed in a montage with Dussander's home being searched and the corpse being found in the basement.

Todd is questioned about his relationship with Dussander and he convinces the police that he knew nothing of the man's true identity. A group of Neo-Nazis demonstrates outside the hospital; realizing his situation is hopeless, Dussander commits suicide by giving himself an air embolism. When French learns that the man who met Todd at school was not Todd's grandfather but a war criminal, he confronts Todd, who then blackmails French into silence by threatening to accuse him of making inappropriate sexual advances.

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