Desperate Journey begins in 1938 and tells the story of the Jewish Knoller family. The Nazis have just invaded Austria and seeing how the Jews are being persecuted The Knoller’s make the decision to evacuate their two boys to somewhere safe. With contacts in America only being able to accept one of their sons they make the decision to send their youngest son, Freddie (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen) to England.
After some cash changes hands young Freddie ends up on a freight train. However, after a run in with some Nazi soldiers Freddie finds himself penniless and in Paris where he’s taken under the wing of Christos (Fernando Guallar), a sleezy doorman at burlesque club who, seeing that Freddie can speak German, decides that it would be a good idea to have him around in order to entice in passing German soldiers. Needing the money to buy forged papers Freddie agrees to take the job.
Whilst loosely based on the real-life events of the real Freddie Knoller Desperate Journey struggles to create any great tension, the decision to play out the story in flashback doesn’t help as right from the start we know that Freddie is going to survive his ordeal in Paris.
Playing out like a sanitised Hallmark channel version of the Holocaust, Desperate Journey is an enjoyable enough piece of entertainment, or it’s as entertaining as a film about the holocaust can be, just don’t go expecting Schindler’s List and you might be pleasantly surprised.
