I've just seen the film Egoshooter with Tom Schilling in the leading role. In Germany Tom Schilling got famous in the film Crazy, an autobiography of a handicapped teenager who goes to a boarding school. After that he had many roles in teenage movies and TV shows. But he has never played a real big part although he's a brilliant and authentic actor. The story line of Egoshooter is told fast: Jacob, a 19 year old boy, films himself and documents everything: taking the train, drinking and smoking, having sex, taking a shower, burgling,... It's a video dairy of a boy who doesn't seem to have perspective in his life. As his life, so the film. In circa 70 minutes Egoshooter gives an insight to Jakob's life that led me dose off. I was really thankful that I hadn't to see more of it. I think I wouldn't came through it. Summarizing it's an absolutely boring film with an actor who is the best in his age.
2 Reviews
Where is the justification for this to be a movie?
Horst_In_Translation19 April 2017
Warning: Spoilers
"Egoshooter" is a German movie from 2004, so two more years until this one has its 15th anniversary. Christian Becker (not to be confused with Wolfgang) and Oliver Schwabe are both writer and director here and these two have worked together on several other occasions too. This one here is a relatively short film at 75 minutes approximately only and it is an early career effort by Tom Schilling, one of Germany's most/more known actors right now and he was in his early 20s when he made this one and already playing in lead roles. So yeah, this one here is the story of a young man who expresses himself by filming all around him with a little camera, so this is definitely a movie that can be described as film on film, even if the centraö character is just an amateur filmmaker.
But honestly I am really struggling with the purpose and objective of this film. What were Becker and Schwabe trying to tell us, what message were they trying to get across in what could probably be considered their most known career effort, also because of the name Schilling in the cast? I am not really sure. I personally did not find the characters interesting or memorable at all and this also includes Schilling's Jakob. The interactions are mostly forgettable and just saying this film depicts every day life is not enough in my opinion to justify the existence of these under 80 minutes. And when finally something relatively unexpected happens, then it also feels a bit for the sake of it. I don't really think Schilling is the problem here as he can also only be as good as the material that he has to work with, but this film is certainly a contender for his possibly worst film, even if you cannot really blame him like I just said. I never managed to develop any interest in the admittedly pretty random and strange story. Thumbs down for this one. Not recommended. And the title is really a joke as it was obviously intended to bait people into seeing this film and hopefully they'd expect something along the lines of Haneke's "Funny Games". Nothing like that in here. 4 stars out of 10 is all I can give and it's even a bit on the generous side.
But honestly I am really struggling with the purpose and objective of this film. What were Becker and Schwabe trying to tell us, what message were they trying to get across in what could probably be considered their most known career effort, also because of the name Schilling in the cast? I am not really sure. I personally did not find the characters interesting or memorable at all and this also includes Schilling's Jakob. The interactions are mostly forgettable and just saying this film depicts every day life is not enough in my opinion to justify the existence of these under 80 minutes. And when finally something relatively unexpected happens, then it also feels a bit for the sake of it. I don't really think Schilling is the problem here as he can also only be as good as the material that he has to work with, but this film is certainly a contender for his possibly worst film, even if you cannot really blame him like I just said. I never managed to develop any interest in the admittedly pretty random and strange story. Thumbs down for this one. Not recommended. And the title is really a joke as it was obviously intended to bait people into seeing this film and hopefully they'd expect something along the lines of Haneke's "Funny Games". Nothing like that in here. 4 stars out of 10 is all I can give and it's even a bit on the generous side.
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