Review of Blutsbrüder

"Blutsbrüder" or a bit more dramatically "Blutsbrüder - Zwischen Leben und Tod" or "Blood Brothers" is an East German 90-minute movie from 1975, so this one is already over 40 years old. The names of the people who made this one are probably not known to many anymore. Still director Wallroth was pretty prolific back then and his writer Ebeling worked on several of these East German Indian films (usually starring Gojko Mitic). His co-writer was Dean Reed and he also plays one of the two title characters here, a White guy who despises the crimes of his people against the Indians and changes sides as a consequence. There he of course falls in love with a squaw and makes friends with Mitic's character. The rest of the cast I must say I have no idea who the actors are anymore today, but they aren't that important anyway. This film has at least one major problem and that is Dean Reed. He has nothing of Lex Barker's charm and charisma and it is just impossible to find his character credible by any means, especially when he is depicted as a tough guy. It is just not working and the cheap reference to another legendary western character in terms of the name is not helping at all either. Admittedly, the creations "Harter Felsen" and "Rehkitz" aren't any better either. But yeah, it's a bit of a shame that Reed was so miscast as I still believe Mitic is a far better actor than Brice, not that this would be a challenge or anything. Reed has a controversial life and death and he probably isn't even a bad actor, but this role is not one for him. Story-wise the film is tolerable, but because of the previous explanations, it's extremely tough to take it seriously during the more dramatic and action parts. Nothing really great though either, a bit generic at times. To me,mostly because of Reed, it had a bit of a "heile Welt" tendency, but I am sure this is not what they were going for. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.