User Reviews

Since this seems to be the first comment for "Carnapping", I have allowed to mark it with a "spoiler" warning despite of the age of the movie.

The first and most remarkable content of this movie is the motorcade of classic vehicles. Apart from the CW311, a prototyped based on a Mercedes chassis which evolved to the Isdera Imperator, there are also the "Polaroid"-Porsche Turbo Targa 911 by bb, a Monteverdi...a feast for the eyes of every auto enthusiast.

The story itself is said to be based on a true story: after the designer of a vehicle (the CW 311) was being defrauded by the client for which he had built this car, he seeks revenge in becoming a car thief himself. (The original story is a bit different and is taking the actual events in advance, but at least the name of the defrauder is the same...) From this moment on, the revenge becomes not only satisfaction, but also a game, culminating in the GTA of 60 (!) Porsche from a Parisian dealer.

Unfortunately, neither of the ingredients of this movie are enough to carry it over the whole distance, it's a bit lengthy. Nonetheless, it's fun to watch (and to compare with "Gone in 60 Seconds"...).

"Car-Napping - Bestellt, geklaut, geliefert" or "Escapade" or just "Carnapping" is a West German movie from 1980, so it had its 35th anniversary last year. The director and one of the two writers is Wigbert Wicker and he was somewhat successful with his works from the 1970s and especially 1980s. The title already gives away that this is a film in which cars play a major role. And this is also why I believe that you have to be interested in motor vehicles, or probably even better really love them in order to appreciate this movie from over three decades ago. I am neither and this may be one reason why I was genuinely bored watching this. The plot was only interesting for half an hour to me and all the characters in here seemed so bland and uninteresting that I just never managed to develop an interest in the story or its protagonists. It probably also did not help that I did not know any of the actors and couldn't recognize any familiar faces in here. Very unknown cast and I think I have only heard of Desny before oh yeah and Hoven of course. I have to say that I was pretty glad this film did not make it until the 90-minute mark as it dragged so much and had many lengths that i actually wished it could have been 60 minutes only. So yeah, I only recommend this to people who love the 1980s, who love German cinema and who really love cars. Guess there aren't really that many left where all this fits. I myself must say I am glad that car-themed films these days aren't frequent anymore compared to the 1970s, 1980s and also early 1990s still. For this one here, 4 out of 10 is still a pretty generous rating in my opinion. Major thumbs-down.