The Man With the Iron Heart: A Dark WWII Drama That Tells Two Stories

Few films about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich take such an unusual route as Cédric Jimenez’s The Man With the Iron Heart. Rather than making the Czechoslovak resistance the sole focus, the film spends almost half its running time tracing Heydrich’s transformation from a disgraced former military officer into one of the most powerful and feared figures in Nazi Germany.

Only later does the story shift toward the resistance fighters sent to assassinate him.

That ambitious structure gives the 2017 French-produced drama a distinctive perspective on one of the most notorious episodes of World War II. But it also creates a divide between two halves that do not always carry the same dramatic weight.

Jason Clarke stars as Reinhard Heydrich, with Rosamund Pike as his wife Lina, Jack O’Connell as Slovak resistance fighter Jan and Jack Reynor as his Czech colleague Jozef. Mia Wasikowska also appears in a supporting role.

Written by Jimenez, Audrey Diwan and David Farr, the screenplay is based on Laurent Binet’s 2012 bestseller. The same historical episode had previously inspired several screen adaptations, including films by Fritz Lang and Douglas Sirk in 1943 and Sean Ellis’ Anthropoid.

From disgraced officer to Nazi power broker

The film briefly previews the events surrounding Heydrich’s assassination before travelling back to 1929, when he is living in the German port city of Kiel.

At this point, Heydrich’s career is in ruins. He has been court-martialed and dismissed from the military because of his relationship with a woman. Lina, already his future wife, encourages him to join the Nazi Party.

That decision changes the course of his life.

Heydrich eventually comes to the attention of Heinrich Himmler, played by Stephen Graham, who recruits him to lead the Nazi intelligence organization known as the SD.

From there, the film follows his rapid rise through the Nazi hierarchy and the transformation of a disgraced officer into a central figure in the regime’s machinery of terror.

For roughly the first 50 minutes, the resistance is almost entirely absent. Instead, viewers are placed inside Heydrich’s world as the Nazi movement grows in power and Germany moves steadily toward war.

It is an uncomfortable narrative choice, particularly because the film offers no conventional hero during this section. The brief opening glimpse of the assassination initially creates anticipation, but that tension gradually gives way to a much broader portrait of Heydrich’s rise.

The man behind the “iron heart”

One of the film’s most unsettling ideas is the contrast between Heydrich’s private life and his role within the Nazi regime.

At home, he is shown with Lina and their children, sometimes in scenes that appear almost ordinary. Those domestic moments are repeatedly set against the increasingly brutal actions associated with his political career.

Editor Chris Dickens reinforces the contrast through abrupt transitions and fragmented montage. A court-martial sequence, for example, cuts between the proceedings and Heydrich’s violent reaction afterward.

Rather than attempting to make Heydrich sympathetic, the film uses these contrasts to show how a seemingly controlled family man exists alongside someone becoming increasingly involved in organized violence.

One particularly striking moment comes during a gathering at the Heydrich home. Lina is told that Hitler has given her husband the nickname “the man with the iron heart.” At the same time, Heydrich is shown holding a baby.

The juxtaposition captures the disturbing contradiction at the centre of the film.

Clarke plays Heydrich with a restrained, intimidating presence, allowing the character’s growing influence to become increasingly unsettling without turning him into a conventional cinematic villain.

Lina’s changing relationship with Heydrich

Rosamund Pike’s Lina is given more complexity than her position in the story might initially suggest.

She begins as a committed supporter of National Socialism and believes the movement can help restore Germany. She also plays an important role in helping Heydrich recover from the collapse of his military career and encouraging him toward the Nazi Party.

But the life she helped build eventually becomes a source of frustration.

As Heydrich’s career advances, he spends increasingly less time at home, leaving Lina to care for their children. His growing power comes at the expense of their marriage, and she becomes increasingly disappointed by the husband he has become.

The film focuses primarily on that deterioration rather than making Lina’s response to the regime’s atrocities the central part of her character arc.

Pike initially gives Lina a hard, controlled quality, but that gradually changes as her isolation and frustration become more visible. Among the characters in the film, she ultimately emerges as one of the most fully developed.

The rise of systematic violence

The first half is not simply a biography of Heydrich. It also depicts the evolution of the Nazi Party itself.

The movement grows from a collection of extremists into an increasingly organized political and military machine. As its influence expands, so does the scale and organization of its violence.

Heydrich becomes increasingly involved in the regime’s efforts to organize mass murder, eventually contributing to the machinery surrounding the Final Solution.

Because Jimenez does not introduce a conventional protagonist fighting against this process, the escalation is presented almost as a relentless progression. One development leads to another, and the growing machinery of violence becomes increasingly difficult to stop.

Only after almost an hour does the film finally turn its attention to those attempting to fight back.

The resistance mission begins

Jan, a Slovak resistance fighter played by Jack O’Connell, and Jozef, his Czech colleague played by Jack Reynor, are parachuted into Czechoslovakia before travelling to Prague.

Members of the Resistance hide the two men as they prepare for their mission: assassinating Heydrich.

The shift immediately moves the film into more familiar wartime territory. The story now follows underground resistance members, secret contacts and preparations for an attack against one of the most powerful figures in Nazi-occupied Europe.

But this section receives less character development than Heydrich’s story.

Compared with Sean Ellis’ Anthropoid, the film spends less time establishing the Czechoslovak government-in-exile and the network supporting the operation. Jan and Jozef are clearly defined by their mission, but their personal histories and relationships receive considerably less attention.

That imbalance becomes increasingly apparent as the film progresses.

A second half with less emotional weight

Mia Wasikowska’s supporting role illustrates the difference particularly clearly.

Despite her presence in the cast, her character receives limited development and is largely connected to Jan through their relationship. Moments between them include kissing, washing his hair and dancing in slow motion, but the film gives her relatively little material beyond that.

As a result, Lina — the wife of the Nazi antagonist — becomes a more developed character than several of the people fighting against him.

The issue is not simply one of screen time. The first half builds steadily as Heydrich’s influence grows, creating a sense of escalating danger. Once the resistance storyline takes over, the momentum becomes less consistent.

The film alternates between tense sequences and quieter passages, and some of the pressure created during the opening section begins to dissipate.

What initially feels like an intentionally divided narrative eventually starts to resemble two connected films built around the same historical event.

The assassination and its aftermath

The story eventually reaches the assassination attempt and the violent confrontation that follows.

The sequence culminates in a shootout and the flooding of a church where members of the resistance are trapped. Jimenez handles the action with considerable confidence, creating a visually controlled and technically assured climax.

Yet the sequence does not have quite the same emotional force as Anthropoid, Sean Ellis’ film about the same operation released the previous year.

That comparison also exposes the structural challenge facing Jimenez’s film. Because so much time has been devoted to Heydrich’s rise, the resistance characters have less opportunity to develop the relationships and personal stakes that might have given the climax greater emotional impact.

The action itself is effective, but the narrative has already divided its attention between two very different stories.

Strong visual filmmaking

If the structure is uneven, Jimenez’s direction remains one of the film’s clearest strengths.

The production has a strong visual scale, while cinematographer Laurent Tangy frequently uses handheld camerawork to create a close, immediate perspective.

That approach works particularly well during the first half, where the audience is repeatedly brought into Heydrich’s increasingly dangerous world.

Guillaume Roussel’s score adds another layer to the atmosphere, often using a restless, pounding sound to maintain tension. The music becomes more sentimental toward the finale, shifting the tone as the film approaches its conclusion.

The combination of cinematography, editing, production design and performances gives The Man With the Iron Heart a strong visual identity, even when the storytelling loses some of its momentum.

An ambitious WWII drama with an unusual perspective

The Man With the Iron Heart is ultimately most distinctive because of what it chooses to emphasize.

Rather than beginning and ending with the resistance mission, Jimenez spends a substantial portion of the film examining Heydrich’s rise and the Nazi regime’s development into an organized system of mass violence.

That first half is also where the film’s most unsettling contrasts emerge: Heydrich as a husband and father alongside Heydrich as a senior Nazi official; Lina’s early political enthusiasm alongside her later disappointment; and the gradual transformation of political extremism into systematic killing.

The resistance section is more conventional and less fully developed. Jan and Jozef are given less psychological depth, the supporting characters receive limited attention, and the pacing becomes less consistent as the assassination approaches.

Even so, the film remains visually assured and thematically ambitious. Jason Clarke gives Heydrich a controlled menace, while Rosamund Pike brings greater emotional complexity to Lina as her marriage deteriorates. O’Connell and Reynor provide warmth to the resistance storyline despite having less material to work with.

The film ends on a notably lighter note, with Jan and Jozef meeting for the first time on the back of a truck.

Rather than offering a straightforward war thriller, The Man With the Iron Heart takes an unconventional route through the history of Heydrich and his assassination. Its two-part structure can feel uneven, but it also gives the film its most distinctive quality: an extended look at the rise of the man at the centre of the assassination before turning to those who were sent to bring him down.

Production Details

Production company: Legende Films
Cast: Jason Clarke, Rosamund Pike, Jack O’Connell, Jack Reynor, Mia Wasikowska, Stephen Graham, Celine Sallette, Gilles Lellouche
Director: Cédric Jimenez
Screenplay: David Farr, Audrey Diwan, Cédric Jimenez, based on the book by Laurent Binet
Producers: Ilan Goldman, Daniel Crown
Director of photography: Laurent Tangy
Production designer: Jean-Philippe Moreaux
Costume designer: Olivier Beriot
Editor: Chris Dickens
Music: Guillaume Roussel
Casting: Francine Meisler, Reg Poerscout-Edgerton
Sales: FilmNation
Language: English
Running time: 120 minutes
Rating: No rating