User Reviews

"Auf Herz und Nieren" is a German movie from 2001, so almost 20 years old now, that runs for slightly over 1.5 hours and was directed by Thomas Jahn, an earlier career effort, and he is still making films today, well mostly series, but yeah for the small screen. The writer is Swiss is Jürg Brändli and he seemingly has not worked on new scripts since 2006 according to imdb. I read that the uncredited co-director here was Til Schweiger and he would be by far the biggest name associated with this project. Oh well, you should not mistake that statement for quality though as Schweiger has worked on many really weak projects in recent years and the 2 or 3 okay films he made earlier in his career are definitely a thing of the past. Now this film here reminded me a bit of a mix between Absolute Giganten and What do to in case of a fire (Was tun wenns Brennt), well lets say a poor man's version of this mix, even if the second film was not exactly a quality movie either. But the style and tone of the latter fits in kinda nicely with this one here. It is somewhat interesting that the core actors here are very much forgotten by now. You can read the names in the cast list. Instead it is those names that barely have any screen time like former boxer Axel Schulz or Flodders' Huub Stapel or the overrated Finzi or Lechtenbrink that most people today have heard of. By the way, singer Xavier Naidoo has also a brief cameo here, one of really not too many acting credits from him, even if admittedly he does not have too much to work with just like the other ones I mentioned, especially Schulz. Oh yeah Jochen Nickel is on board too and he looks so much like Ron Pearlman on his profile picture. And lets not forget Udo Kier, who is fun as always, even (or especially?) with his bizarre voice in this one.

Now this is the story of a few guys who owe a great deal of money to the wrong person and they need to get it quickly or they will be in gue trouble that could even threaten their lives. Sounds dangerous first of all and I agree, even if I could never take this movie seriously as a gritty crime film. It is more about the comedy in my opinion, which unfortunately wasn't too great either though. Gently-speaking... I agree with the other reviewer that the only actor who left a lasting impression here is Thierry van Werweke. He had the most difficult role and he pulled it off while everybody else seemed so pale. It is pretty sad he is gone for so long now already. It feels especially ironic how many mentions of his character's health are included of his movie (and the suicide idea) looking at his real fate. i know it wasn't suicide, but still. I also really didn't like the way friendship was depicted here. They constantly bully TvW's character and explain it eventually with the fact that he just accepts it and won't stand up against the bullies despite having the physical strength to do so. Great argument. Not. Oh yeah and that they tried to keep him from killing himself really means they are his best friends of course. You would not keep a stranger from doing so. Anyway, I will not go into further detail here about the story and just say it really did not feel particularly realistic most of the time, instead just for the sake of it creating cheap thrills. The best example is when they think they are safe when in police custody, so they damage a few cars and get arrested and locked away. Until they are interrogated of course by a police man who is close with the criminal they owe money to and he lets them get away obviously, so they can get the money. Don't expect authenticity here. It is a very gimmicky movie and you are thrown right into the story from the beginning, which wasn't a bad idea per se as we still learn a lot about the characters, even if some of them were depicted in such an uninteresting manner that they felt really interchangeable and the worst is I am talking about key characters here, not minor supporting players. Overall, this movie gets a thumbs-down from me. These were the days of the New German Wave in terms of movie-making, a great bunch of films inspired by the likes of Lola rennt (admittedly I don#t like that one really much either), but rarely one reached convincing quality. This one here certainly didn't. It is closer to a failure (1 out of 5) than to a good film (3 out of 5). Skip it. Watch something else instead.