Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Das Inferno - Flammen über Berlin" or "Feuersprung" or "Raging Inferno" is a German television film from 2007, so these slightly over 1.5 hours have their 10th anniversary this year. The director is Rainer Matsutani and while his career is not exactly filled with greatness, this is still a definite step down. Same is true for writer Frank Raki. The story here is about the television tower in Berlin and what happens when a big explosion results in a massive fire that puts everybody's life at stake, visitors' as well as employees' and firefighters. I am not aware of the technical situation how realistic this film is overall, so I will not say anything more about that, but instead focus on the reasons why I gave this film a 2/10 rating and consider it one of the year's worst. The script is the center of it all. It starts messy the moment the flames hit the building as we see characters quick enough to react and jump to the ground to safety while others just get fried immediately. Oh well, it actually starts earlier with the cringe, namely in the taxi already. Also all these coincidences here are downright embarrassing. We have a taxi driver, former fighter, near the television tower and the reason he was fired was because he is allegedly responsible for his former boss' death. And the boss is also the one in charge this time, so it is all a story about making up. The writers made sure to let the boss look like the most incompetent fool with the fired (no pun intended!) guy next to him being really smart, alpha male who knows what to do in every critical situation. Of course he is also the one making out with the (even higher) boss' daughter, who surprise surprise is also at the television tower the same time and also acts like a heroine for the most part despite being a simple employee only. Her boss is written as some kind of antagonist early on before they depict him as some kind of villain quickly after and then he pretty much vanishes for the entire second half. In general, one if the film's biggest flaws is the character writing. Shades are completely nonexistent and most of the words coming out of the people's mouths feel just as written as they were which quickly took away all the drama factor this film had because it never felt authentic and you could pretty much predict it until its smallest detail in terms of what would happen at the end. Honestly, German small-screen movies about catastrophes, mostly natural, are known to hit rock-bottom on at least 50% of the films fitting the description, but still I was surprised about how horribly this one turned out in the end. Maybe I shouldn't because there are names in here that have a few stinker films attached to their bodies of work over the years, but well you have to hope for mediocre quality at least I guess. I will not say any names, but you probably know who I mean if you know a bit about German films. That's all I guess, this film is not just about a disaster, it is one itself. I highly recommend to stay away and honestly the ones who deserve even harsher criticism than the ones who make garbage films like that are the awards bodies considering it for wins. Unreal stuff here. Keep your distance.

Loui0341-160-91779 The story is what you might expect - an explosion causes a fire in the tower, soon people are trapped and the firefighters have to solve the problem. The characters and dialogues are really, really bad. The CGI on the other hand, especially for an TV-production, was pretty good. Some scenes were indeed well done and full of suspension, but some awful plot holes made me yelling stuff like: Why does nobody of the trapped guys just leave the tower by using the STAIRS?? Even the firefighters use them to get to the so called trapped people. Why not just going back down? (This plothole is closed some 30 minutes into the movie, but actually, this was an option for a pretty long time after the fire broke out.) Also the climax was very unsurprising. Look at "The Towering Inferno" or the very well made korean Remake some years ago - the fire is always put out by detonating tanks. It wasn't water in this movie, but after all it was just the same. Althoug the part with the improvised elevator seemed very familiar to me. Was there ever a fire-in-the-tower-movie, that missed the try to evacuate the trapped ones by going out the window on some dysfunctional elevator-thingy? Don't think so. The movie is after all not very bad, but if you are not a huge fan of disaster-movies, you should skip this one.

dbborroughs German lensed TV movie set in Berlin about fire in a radio/TV tower that has a restaurant and site seeing deck at the top. People become trapped when the fire causes the elevator motors to fall and destroy the stairway down.That bit and a couple of others don't make a great deal of sense, but at the same time the movie moves along at a good clip and is the sort of thing that is exciting enough to keep watching. I picked the film off the shelf because it seemed cheesy, and then I saw it was from Maverick Entertainment a company that usually releases a real mixed bag of films. This is one of the best ones they've released and is something I'll probably pick up down the road when I can get a cheap copy.

eigna007-1 I bought the DVD a day ago from HMV ( It is titled "Raging Inferno" in English. ) and have just finished it. Just can't wait to recommend it to others. The storyline is simple ( and typical ) but its special effects contributes a lot in making it a must-watch. I will call it an updated version of the Towering Inferno, with the same excitement but more outstanding special effects. We do have some soaring towers picked to be landmarks in many places around the world. While I was watching it, I recalled my experience of visiting some of these TV towers such as the CN Tower in Toronto, Petronas Twins Tower in Kuala Lumpur and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower in Shanghai, etc. "Will that really happen?" "What if I were one of them up there?" were the questions I posted in my mind when viewing it. It's really an exciting movie to watch.