To See or not To See...

Only Mel Brooks would try to do a Mel Brooks film about the Nazi invasion of Poland. Brooks manages to pull off the film, but he does it by NOT making a Mel Brooks comedy.
The typical Mel Brooks film has a huge amount of low-class jokes that no one else could ever do. There is real humour in his films, but a lot of it is the campfire beans scene from Blazing Saddles. Brooks has even proved that he can get away with jokes that are in amazingly bad taste and still have them be funny (consider the Inquisition scene from History of the World Part I.)
Brooks discovers that even he can't go too far when dealing with such a touchy (and recent) subject as the holocaust. He does manage to make some incredibly funny scenes, but there is a serious plot and there is drama. The drama and plot are simple, but they are unique for a Brooks production.
A lot of the jokes in this film are sort of stale and not great, but a few of them are wonderful. There is a musical number called Naughty Nazis that I still sing on occasion.
All in all this is a solid comedy film with a serious plot. This is new for Brooks, but he does nothing particularly amazing with the drama. It will give you some chuckles and the plot makes it okay to laugh at the jokes. I would not go buy this film, but I would rent it on a slow night.