User Reviews

A team of determined robbers has set in motion an unusually bold heist plan. In order to access a storeroom containing a fortune, they need to hold the director-general of the bank hostage. They also need to find the four keys necessary to open the storeroom door, within a relatively short window of opportunity. This means having to identify, trace and somehow "capture" four different individuals going about their daily business...

"4 Schlüssel" is a good thriller/crime movie with clever twists and turns. It moves at a good clip, thanks to a sure-footed direction and an efficient screenplay. The black-and-white adds to its lean and crisp look. The gang leader - ruthless, methodical, polite - is an especially menacing villain, not least because one gets a sense of a richly gifted person who could have built himself an admirable career in some law-abiding field. The versatile cunning with which he adapts to any situation is chilling. It is fittingly ironic that, near the end, the most decisive blow to his criminal enterprise will come from something as innocent and natural as a small boy's love for his grandfather.

The passage of time has provided "4 Schlüssel" with a time capsule charm. Watch it and you'll travel to the West-Germany of the mid-sixties, complete with its cars, its elections, its entertainments, its social mores and even its courtship rituals.