Horst in Translation ([email protected]) The award-nominated "Tag der Wahrheit" or "Kollwein's Day of Truth" is a German 90-minute film from 2015, so still a relatively new film and this small screen work is certainly among director Anna Justice's most known works, even if probably not top of the pile. German film buffs may have come across Lukas, Krieps and Sadler in other projects too and I must give a huge thumbs-up to Florian Lukas here. This is 100% his movie here and I am pretty shocked he did not receive any awards attention at all for it. It's a role he has never played before really and that takes him out of his comedy/cop comfort zone. Far out of it and he is hitting all the right notes really. Lets say he is not exactly physically perfect for playing characters that ooze control and domination, but really pulled it off here. And he also gives depth to the character as some kind of decay is visible on him the longer the film, the danger situation goes. I cannot say I was as happy with Krieps, but that is really not her fault, but the character is a prime example when it comes to badly written female characters. The way she was introduced with that cringeworty "I am nobody." phrase or the way she had to smile when somebody finally recognizes her were really embarrassing, even if it is the bad guy. And from that moment on we knew she would turn into that unrealistic Valerie Niehaus kind of character that has zero business really being as impactful and in the center of the story as she is. Sadler is decent overall, but also pretty forgettable, has little to work with. Basically the only reason I give this film three stars out of five and thus a thumbs-up is Florian Lukas. But there is another reason as I was quite undecided until the end and that is the ending actually. It's nice for once to see a writer not scared of giving the unhappy ending, which also may have had to do with this being a television film. They are more daring there. And it also makes a statement on an important subject like power plants that it does not even need a terrorist like Lukas' character to bring catastrophe to everybody, a simple accident is enough and no matter of how unlikely it may be (that the bullet hits right there, nice camera shot by the way no pun intended), it's not a risk worth taking. Thumbs up for these 1.5 hours. Go see them if you can. This is not your random German low-quality disaster movie, this is the realistic stuff happening before the catastrophe.