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Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, and Frank Whaley play tight-knit German teenagers rebelling against the growing Nazi party by embracing a counter culture of long hair and banned U.S. swing music. But as each of the boys is pressured into joining Hitler’s Youth organization, difficult and deadly decisions are made. Swing Kids is surprisingly dark for a film hiding under a Disney-esque veneer. And thankfully so, because not many films have yet been made about the brainwashing that went on inside Germany during Hitler’s rise to power. Christian Bale’s character is seduced by the comfort and ease of the Nazi party, while Frank Whaley’s character is terrified of succumbing, and Robert Sean Leonard’s is caught in between the two — haunted by memories of the night the Nazis took his sympathizer father away, never to be seen again. It’s a frightening film, and since history is already written, you know from the very beginning that it won’t end well. Each of the characters is forced to make a heart-breaking decision: their moral integrity or their lives. Accents come and go throughout the film, which is in English instead of German, but production designer Allan Cameron and costume designer Jenny Beavan create a palpable pre-WWII environment, and composer James Horner conducts classic swing music into his original score so vibrantly, that it’s no wonder the young characters ever fell under its spell. With Barbara Hershey, Kenneth Branagh, and Noah Wyle.