User Reviews

"Die Grenze" or "The Frontier" is a German 2-part mini-series from 2010 and each episode runs for a bit over 90 minutes, so you can watch the entire thing in slightly over 3 hours. The director is Roland Suso Richter and even if he is really experienced and has received many awards, this one here is certainly not his brightest moments. It's actually fairly disappointing to see how many people worked on this one in the screenplay department and how horrible it turned out at times. Certainly a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. But the cast wasn't much better. It's tough to say who was worse: Katja Riemann channeling her inner Merkel or Bäumer showing us the epitome of an uninspired female lead character/performance. The positive surprise was definitely Benno Fürmann and while I was harsh on him in other projects, there's nothing wrong with his turn here and he elevates the material at times. But it's just too bad to be saved. The ridiculous story they gave a talented actor like Zehrfeld here says it all. It unacceptable and 4 stars is very much generous for this film that is high on the garbage level on several occasions. The general premise is tolerable and interesting even if I can see BILD readers make non-existent references to the AFD without a doubt. Instead the film is much more on the mark with parallels to the German split into 2 countries. But also just very vaguely. Looking at the poster and the fact that this film is zero about comedy, but takes itself horribly serious from start to finish to be a defining fictional historic piece makes it unbearable to watch on many occasions. Is it a failure? Maybe not, but really close at times. The way they included absurd dramatic moments and scenes like also the death of one character near the end and the rise of his killer (good job police, good job security guards) was all for the sake of it and you will almost find zero moments when this felt really interesting and relevant and most of all authentic. Skip it. Stay far away from this one. It's all trying to entertain, perfect film for people we call "sensationsgeil" here in Germany, but for people with good taste who are looking for depths and good character writing, this is close to torture. Don't bother with it.