There was once a time when a comedy about the holocaust would have been considered an audaciously brave and/or audaciously stupid move. Unfortunately for Jakob The Liar, the conclusion of that particular period in cinema history occurred a year earlier, with the release of Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful.
As a result, what would otherwise have been, if nothing else, at least controversial, simply comes across as a vehicle for Robin Williams at his most unpleasantly sentimental. The artist formerly known as Mork plays the economically truthful Jakob, a mild-mannered Jewish baker-cum-boxing manager who we discover failing to make ends meet in a Polish ghetto towards the end of World War II. After accidentally learning that Germany is losing the battle for the Eastern front, Williams spreads the good news - and before you can say, "Goooooooooood morning, Warsaw!" the entire community is under the misapprehension that he has somehow saved a radio from Nazi confiscation.
Which presents something of a dilemma for our supposedly unheroic hero. Should he tell the truth and destroy his increasingly suicidal friends last hopes? Or should he risk execution by pretending that he does have a radio, enabling him to do a lot of funny voices behind a screen for the entertainment of the cute little concentration camp-escaping munchkin that he stumbled across way back in Act One? Anyone who bets on the first option has clearly never seen a Robin Williams movie - although they would certainly be well advised not to make this their first. Since it was based on a book by camp survivor Jurek Becker - Jacob Le Menteur - no one could argue that director Kassovitz's intentions are less than noble. But as entertainment, the end product is as turgid a film about mass genocide as we are ever likely to see.