As Eichmann, Tucci performs convincingly, despite his dark Italian looks - perhaps because his character is the one with whom we are most familiar from Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem and from recently released transcripts of his interrogation by Israeli police. The lieutenant colonel was a bureaucrat to the extreme, willing to follow orders though fully cognizant of the consequences, and carrying out his duties with the soulless efficiency of the HAL 9000. Kenneth Branagh, on the other hand, had less to work with. The Academy Award nominee for Hamlet plays Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Main Security Office, second only to Himmler. History knows him only as "The Hangman" and "of diabolical cast." Branagh confesses it was enormously difficult to portray such a man, without any sense of guilt, conscience, or humanity. (Branagh also mentions he'll be more than happy never to don the SS uniform again.) Still, the actor delivers a truly terrifying performance, his friendly smile betrayed by his cold blue eyes. DVD Contains One Obvious Flaw

HBO's DVD of Conspiracy is technically well done, capturing the film's desaturated winter colors quite well. Unlike its original broadcast on HBO, it's presented in anamorphic widescreen, allowing for both a sharper image, and many more scenes with two or more actors reacting to each other, rather than a single close-up face.

The DVD does contain one glaring, and unfortunate omission. Its packaging clearly promises an interview with the director, Frank Pierson. Yet it's not included, which is regrettable, as in many ways, films that take place in a confined location (such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, both obvious models for Pierson's directorial techniques here) require more skill to pull off successfully than zillion dollar special effects blockbusters. And it would be fascinating to learn how Pierson balanced historical fact with dramatic license.

While Pierson's direction is certainly skillful, it's Mandel's script that makes the film so powerful. It ends on two virtuoso notes, each wonderfully underplayed by the actors. First, as everyone shuffles out, Ian McNeice as Dr. Gerhard Klopfer, who works for Borman but looks as fat as Hermann Goering, gives Eichmann, a knowing, snarky "Shalom!", which subtly anticipates Eichmann's eventual 1960 capture in Argentina by Israeli commandos, and his trial and hanging in Israel two years later.

And in a tacid nod to the Soviet Union, whose famines, gulags and show trials killed millions prior to World War II, Mandel's script has Friedrich Kritzinger (played by David Threlfall) of the Reich chancellory softly telling a colleague, while waiting for his car to depart Wannsee, "It is night in Moscow already. Soon it will be dark here. Do you think that we will ever see the dawn in our lifetime?"