[2] Ethics professor Jack Lambert's neighbor Max Mueller is revealed on the TV news to be escaped Nazi war criminal Karl Luger, whom the courts sentenced to death.
The police initially believe it's a suicide, greatly upsetting Lambert, who mails them a cryptic letter explaining that it was actually a murder to carry out the court sentence and to avenge all the lives taken.
Feeling guilty, Lambert atones by dumping his fiancée Gail and marrying Mueller's daughter Inga.
[...] What could have been a smart and sardonic—not to mention timely—social commentary turns into a humorless collection of caricatures that even the more forgiving video screen doesn't improve.
The opening paragraph of James Berardinelli's review of the film for ReelViews read:Some movies are ruined in post-production.
It shrinks from risks that might alienate a casual viewer, and, by its very blandness and adherence to "traditional" structure, crosses the line of dubious taste into the realm of the offensive.
A deceptively playful Lemmon is plausible as both a genocidal monster in hiding and a harmless old man and Tomlin's uncompromising performance is refreshingly devoid of sentimentality.