Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Schrotten!" or "Wreck It!" is a German movie from last year (2016) that runs for slightly over 90 minutes including credits. The director is Max Zähle and he is also one of the writers. this film here is his first full feature film after some short film works, one of them even an Oscar nominee. So it is not surprising that the cast here includes some of Germany's more/most known actors from their age groups. The most known here is of course Frederick Lau, but the likes of Gregorowicz, Bock, Bederke, Rudolph and Scheer may be known to German film buffs as well. I personally think all the actors did an okay job here without one standing out too much really. Then again, this film is more about the story than it is about individual performances. In the first half, I enjoyed the watch on some occasions. The introduction of the rich son who left behind his life and how he has to go back to his roots was done fairly convincingly and it was interesting to watch the characters interact. But the moment the conflict really moves away from Gregorowicz' character with his brother and friends from them sticking together against the bad guy who wants to buy their junkyard at any cost, the film gets worse.One pretty underwhelming example is the scene when they actually try to steal the copper from the train. This could have been the greatest sequence of the entire film, but I found it mostly disappointing and not half as tense as it could have been, let alone edge-of-seat material. Also at that point it would have been crucial for the film to be on a level where we would really care for the characters to make it to an extent where we would forgive them committing a crime and I don't think this had been fulfilled at that point, which is a major negative deal breaker. Instead, the film relies almost entirely on the audience hating the greedy wealthy antagonist enough that we would rather hope for him to fail instead of liking the team from the yard enough that we would cheer for them all the way. On another slightly negative note, I have never been a fan of Gregorowicz and while he was solid at times, I am not sure if he was a good casting decision here for the central character. Besides, it was all a bit predictable, not in detail, but in terms of the general developments and how everything would turn out eventually. Judging from the first half only, I would have given this movie a better rating and also a thumbs-up as recommendation, but the way things turned out in the second 45 minutes I just can't. Nowhere near the best German films of 2016. Watch something else instead.
