Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Der Clown" or "Der Clown - Tag der Vergeltung" or "The Clown: Payday" is a German German-language film from 2005, so it is already over a decade old, that of course is a follow-up to the pretty well-known television show of the same title. We find out early on about the events that resulted in the title character retiring from his prestigious job, but everything that follows afterward in this 100-minute movie is all new in terms of plot and story and characters. Sven Martinek is of course in the lead and the fact that he is okay as a lead actor in action films makes him better than most of the other cast members and that really says nothing positive about this project. There are a couple more names in here that you may have come across if you like German films. These would be the admittedly fairly stunning Habermann, Seeberg, Otto, Brambach and even little Bernhard Hoëcker has a cameo as a petty burglar that really surprised me. Fittingly with his voice acting role on Shrek, he is called Rumpelstiltskin by the protagonist here. As for the story, it would be a lie that it is memorable whatsoever and there are some pretty bad moments involving the dialogues which is somewhat expected if you take a look at the people who made this film and what else they have come up with. But luckily it is not permanent and for the most part, it is just a tolerable random action film and not a genuinely horrible movie either, even if it is far from the level where I would recommend it to general audiences. It's not a great loss if you skip it. It is really really difficult to find anyway these days. So who should see it? Probably only those who also saw the series back then enjoyed it. Those will probably like the approach and also the closure offered in here and honestly unlike many other films who take themselves seriously while being frequently even worse than this one here, this is a film that also has its lighter moments, even if many of them are also more embarrassing than funny. So yeah, I give this one a thumbs-down. Go for something else instead. It's only good if you are in the mood for somewhat stupid action film entertainment. But then it's close to a perfect choice I guess. Being into clown action alone isn't enough. If so, maybe try the new It instead or the Killer Clowns from Outer Space epic.

ofjeworstlust But whoever came up with this crap? The series had more action, more funny lines, and a packed story altogether. The effects are crappier than I've ever seen before. Take the shot with the lorry that's being rocketed - you clearly see a dummy driving. Or the shot where a car passes a tram, it's clearly computer generated.Might not be that bad, but untrue characters that do really stupid moves, it might have been acceptable at the beginning of cinema.And then the soundtrack. After practically every scene a bit of English or German noise has to be added. Why, is it a musical or what?Really awful and unbelievable. We've seen many events in other movies before, and a lot better. I loved Kommissar Rex, Derrick, Der Alte, Der Klown, but this is major C*R*A*P!

Lari-Fari "Der Clown" is the movie version of the German TV – series by the same name, running quite successful from 1996 to 2001. The series was about some guy who is officially dead but in truth is sitting in his hideout, waiting for the bad guys to move. Whenever something is seriously wrong, he'll put on a clown mask and go rampage, vigilante – style. So far, so good, on to the Big Screen...A merry bunch of bad guys with hockey masks wants to steal the German gold reserves. The guy who once was the Clown has retired after his girlfriend was killed in action, but now it's time for him to take his costume out of the vault, put on the smelly rubber mask again and kick some bad butt.Boy, this has gone wrong. Big time trash bonanza! First of all, it was not shot on 35 mm, it does not even look like 16 mm, I have a certain feeling that they did it on video. Bad video, that is, with the predominant colours being red (explosions, the actors' faces) and grey (everything else). It looks terrible, but on the other hand, that fits quite well with about all other aspects of this production. The movie desperately tries in every scene to imitate big loud Hollywood action flicks (which is absolutely okay), but obviously the makers neither have the talent nor have they understood anything (not okay). Every five minutes there is a big, red (you know, video) explosion or something, our heroes escape one way or the other, with always the same pathetic piece of score. I would accept that those scenes do not have any kind of emotional impact, but the movie does not even work as an entertaining no-brainer, never! And whose fault is this? Yes. Send in the director, writer, editor and all the other clowns responsible for this catastrophe! May they lower their red video faces in shame!The screenplay was obviously written by a chimp that was tied to a typewriter. It reveals a total lack of sense for pace, logic, characters, dialog, you name it. There is absolutely no storytelling. You could zap into this crap every time, stay with it for five minutes and change the channel again, without the feeling that you're missing something before or after what you just watched, it has made-for-TV written all over (Afterwards I even had problems to summarize the story at all...). This terrible excuse for a script is turned into an uninspired, uninterrupted inferno of hectic, shaky shots. Honestly, I saw home movies that had more virtuosity than this. Heck, not even the action sequences look good! The most annoying thing however is the extensive, completely unmotivated use of time warps and split screen effects throughout the whole movie (I don't mean two or three times, it is in almost EVERY scene). And for those who are still with us: The sound mixing is the worst I was forced to listen to in years. Bad, bad, bad!But I wouldn't say that it is not entertaining. "Der Clown" features tons of incredible, unintentionally funny moments, e.g. a stunt, where at least a dozen burning police cars fly through the cloud of an explosion (red, of course) on a highway. Yes, this is a cool stunt. No, it is by no means a tragic, emotional scene which would maybe, and only maybe, justify the use of slow motion and pathetic syntheziser strings for two long minutes. It however gets really, really tasteless when the main character has a flashback of how his girlfriend died. This is edited like a music video, with the lethal bullet entering the girl's body within the rhythm of the music. My god, what were they thinking??If you're into trash and maybe even survived last year's moron fiesta "Daniel – Der Zauberer", this is definitely a must see. If not, be warned. You'll probably feel the urge to go rampage afterwards, vigilante – style.

marco_23_polo I saw this film right on the day it opened in a large theater and even though I wasn't familiar with the original German TV Series I at least expected decent action entertainment and hoped to experience some two hours of fun and adrenaline.But even my lowest expectations were completely shattered. DER CLOWN is a vintage cinematic failure - which rates even more painful, as it is conceived to be the first cinema released film of the newly formed cinema division of Germany's production company ACTION CONCEPT. This is even more lamentable, as the film presents its assets in a very loose and disadvantageous manner: even though it contains some extremely strong elaborate stunts, explosions (of choppers, cars and even entire planes) and shootouts, which certainly would be worthy of a true Hollywood action production, these supposed assets are not presented as eye candy at all. The actions sequences are framed and edited in a dull way, making them look average, boring and uninspired. The blown up 16mm to 35mm image on the screen looks awfully cheap, the ongoing use of grand camera moves and particularly the frequent split screens pretending some artistic merits are just annoying and do make no sense at all!But it's not only the failure of technical aspects, which ads up to me feeling FÜR DUMM VERKAUFT at the end of the screening. The actors, the storyline and the governing VISION of this project seem to be dis comfortably stuck in the feeling of average German 90s television bonanza (no matter how successful it must have been at its time) - and this doesn't add a sense of missing aura and charming feel to the flick...And finally: the producers really ought to be warned for their slated upcoming productions: if you tailor you next films after this model DON'T EVER ATTACH THE KIND OF CREDITS WITH FEELGOOD BACKSTAGE FOOTAGE AND BLOPPERS ... it's simply downright embarrassing, period (I had to cover my eyes). Finally I really have to mention, that the best experience of this very evening was the preceding trailer of the upcoming film KAMPFANSAGE (an ACTION CONCEPT CINEMA production as well), which appears to be far more satisfying and in terms of story, look, style, music, characters, acting and directing. And I'm really looking forward to seeing it.Rumors have it, that this guerrilla like film has been produced on a tight, little budget of EUR 300,000. Now, if there are guys who can make a supposedly appealing feature for such a tiny budget, why are other people of even the same production company (!) entirely unable to end up with something witty and gripping for an estimated budget of 8 billion Euros? That's a Gordian knot I haven't been able to untie yet...A true and newly born German entertainment cinema is certainly about to appear on the spotlight - but DER CLOWN dosen't belong to it (... at least, that is what I hope!)... I rated it 3 lame stars for some whacky pyrotechnics and for the hyped-up lips of German I-wanna-be-a great-star Xenia Seeberg ...