sergelamarche And this is what I like. We can read about it later if we want more details. The reconstitution here is just plain great. Great fights, great bombings, great shootings, better than americans. The acting is excellent. We are plunged into a dark past for two hours. And the germans make the best terrorists.

SnoopyStyle It's 1967 Germany. Leftist journalist Ulrike Meinhof witnesses students demonstrating against the Shah being attacked by Iranian thugs with the silent approval of the German police. Gudrun Ensslin leaves her life to join Andreas Baader and others on their violent revolutionary. It is a world of political radicalization against the Vietnam war, American imperialism, and Arab nationalism against Israel while rebelling against their parents' Nazi past.This is an unflinching look at these terrorists. It's potent blend of youthful exuberance, political absolutism, criminal morality, and intense believes. It doesn't make them stars but rather terribly flawed humans rebelling against a rigid system. I think some people want the movie to explain the political landscape more and justify their actions. What I find interesting is that at some point, their actions seem to justify themselves. They push themselves further and further. It's a look at home grown terrorism without slick romanticism. There is plenty of action but it is the strip down realism that is so striking.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex" is a German 2.5-hour movie from 7 years ago that managed Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, but lost to the Israeli and Japanese entries there. And that is very acceptable as this one here is really not such a convincing movie. It is about the German left-extreme group RAF that was part of several terrorist acts in the 1960s and 1970s. First of all, the film's biggest strength is the cast: Gedeck, Bleibtreu, Wokalek, Ganz, Lara, Schilling, Ferch, Liefers, Thieme and I could go on. All very established names in German movies and you know you get quality when you see them on a cast list. The best performance here probably comes from Johanna Wokalek who plays Gudrun Ensslin brilliantly. Quite a pity she is so rare in films these days. Change that Johanna if you read this.Sadly, this magnificent cast cannot turn a mediocre movie into something great. Uli Edel and Bernd Eichinger are certainly not known for outstanding talent in terms of directing, writing and producing movies and Constantin Film AG is known for producing quantity over quality in general and this is also the case here. First of all, the films would have needed a lot more focus. They could have kept it at 100 instead of 150 minutes and nothing of value would have been lost. There are many scenes who add nothing at all to the film. This especially refers to almost the entire last 30 minutes, in which they apparently decided to basically make almost a completely new movie. Some of the characters from previously were dead (Meinhof), some were in jail, but got almost no screen time (Baader), so they went with completely new characters who never appeared before in the film and where we had no clue who they actually were and why the focus was suddenly on them. A really bad example of lacking focus. Yes it was okay that they took the Schleyer kidnapping in there, but they executed this part in the worst possibly way one could imagine.Other than that, just like with many other Eichinger productions, this film is very much showy and in your face and has pretty much zero subtlety (the last shot, in the truest sense of the word, was a great example) in terms of the script (some of the actors brought it still thanks to their talent). Edel and Eichinger were lucky that the topic (RAF) does not really need too much subtlety and they did not destroy the film with their shortcomings in that area like they did with other movies. And finally, another criticism is that Bruno Ganz who I really love as an actor was really wasted in this movie here with his character adding absolutely nothing the way he was written. Pretty sad. All in all, the movie is okay as a watch for everybody with an interest in German post-WWII history, but it's nowhere near as good as it could have been. The actors really saved it from becoming a disaster and make it worth the watch. Recommended.

spamobile Most people have most likely forgotten this era in the history of Europe. But those that grew up in these times can most likely remember this well. There were of course more terrorist groups in those days but for myself, coming from The Netherlands, these were one of the more notorious groups. Although the cause was not as much the problem, the means to try to achieve this were of course totally unacceptable. The movie is a good depiction of this era and all what happened around the Baader Meinhoff group. Possibly not all fact are true in the movie but it's not a documentary, it's a proper movie with high realism. You have to see this in German of course, that adds to the realism of the movie. I think it's well played, no nonsense, believable characters. Watch it, well worth it I think!