The Odessa File is set in Berlin in the winter of 1963. Jon Voight plays Peter Miller, a German reporter who is investigating the whereabouts of missing Nazi war criminals. After reading the diary of a Holocaust survivor who has recently committed suicide, Miller goes on the trail of in-hiding SS officer Eduard Rochemann ( Maximillian Schell ). The reporter finds his investigation blocked by members of a secretive group called Odessa. With the help of Israeli activists, Miller persists in his search. Despite the violent obstructive tactics of Odessa, Rochemann is at last uncovered, leading to one of the most cold-blooded "logical" monologues in all filmdom. Schell's sister Maria also appears in The Odessa File as Voight's mother, the widow of a German soldier. Based on a nailbiting novel by Frederick Forsyth , The Odessa File is highlighted by the exquisitely Teutonic score of Andrew Lloyd Webber . — Hal Erickson