"Meister des Todes" is a German movie from 2015, so this one has its fifth anniversary this year and it is mostly in the German language. Foreign language is only included because this film is at its core about business deals between people from different nations. It runs for 1.5 hours and the writer and director is Daniel Harrich. This film was shown a couple more times very recently here on television because the sequel was just released and some television channels simply showed both films together now. This was also the case last night and this is when I got to watch "Master of Death" for the first time. You see the title is already very much on the baity side and I personally find it pretty cringeworthy to be honest. It literally screams "Watch me!" to the easily entertained and as they made a sequel, it seems that many were stupid enough to fall for this title. As you can see from the title of my review, I also watched said sequel and well what can I say, I think the sequel was really really bad, but this is no surprise with the likes of Ferres and Wackernagel in the lead. Koffler and Lauterbach in this film here are actors who admittedly also do not have the greatest range, but they are not as bad as those females who took over for the second film. As expected, this film takes itself far more seriously than it has any right to. Just take the very beginning. Annd with that I do mean the VERY beginning. We can read a few words written on the screen. This film is linked to actual events, however, it needs to be added that neither the characters' personal interactions nor their professional (i.e. business) interactions necessarily happened the way they are shown here. Okay, they wanted to be on the safe side. But tell me then, if these 2 different areas of interactions are described as non-authentic, then what is left there? Sorry b ut mentioning official authorities here in Germany (no matter how impactful they may be) does not turn it into a film based on actual events. Pretty shameful to see that even Adolf Grimme Awards fell for this travesty. Basically the filmmaker here tells us: Hey things actually could have happened like this, but they didn't.
So you must understand that this film is not worth watching for its connection with reality. Are there reasons to see it for? Not many to be honest. The lack of realism continues throughout the movie and it does not also affect the key plot about selling weapons, but also those smaller moments, which shows us the film did not really have good attention to detail either. It is all about the entertainment factor. The best example is when we see Wachtveitl making out with this girl half his age maybe and she is the daughter of this important Hispanic businessman. Really felt sorry for the actress there that she has to play crap like this, but then again she agreed to do so. .. The eventual message is basically that the are all crooks. I find it a bit worrying that so many somewhat known names have agree to play in this movie here. I already mentioned Lauterbach and Koffler, but Ferres is also in it for example, which certainly does not symbolize quality, but her role is so insignificant here that not even she could mess it up. It's not so obvious the actress has 3 different face expressions max when she is in the film for 9 minutes only (if at all) and not 90. There are other actors who are maybe more talented (or at least as) than the two male leads: Knaup, Zirner and Milberg, but all of these also do not have a great deal of screen time or good material to make an impact. It's not a rong statement to say they ahev been wasted here, especially Knaup. And the final mention goes to Alina Levshin and same is true for her. Really disappointing as I think she is one of the best from her age group here in Germany, but here she is reduced to playing the (younger) protagonist's wife and she has literally nothing to work with. This also ready shows that there was no great competence involved when making this movie. It's definitely closer to 1 star out of 5 than to 3 stars out of 5 and me giving this one a negative recommendation was honestly never in doubt. The filmmakers are to blame, maybe the actors, but most of all the audience who showed the filmmakers that they liked the film enough so that a sequel could be made. Disgusting. Really disgusting to see that we are forced to pay for films like this one and the even more garbage sequel. But I talked about that one the other day already. This one here may be slightly better, but that does not mean it's good. The occasional moments of okay entertainment or dramatic tension (like the woman shot during these riots) only seem fine because everything else you see in here is not, not because they are actually quality filmmaking. Watch something else instead.
So you must understand that this film is not worth watching for its connection with reality. Are there reasons to see it for? Not many to be honest. The lack of realism continues throughout the movie and it does not also affect the key plot about selling weapons, but also those smaller moments, which shows us the film did not really have good attention to detail either. It is all about the entertainment factor. The best example is when we see Wachtveitl making out with this girl half his age maybe and she is the daughter of this important Hispanic businessman. Really felt sorry for the actress there that she has to play crap like this, but then again she agreed to do so. .. The eventual message is basically that the are all crooks. I find it a bit worrying that so many somewhat known names have agree to play in this movie here. I already mentioned Lauterbach and Koffler, but Ferres is also in it for example, which certainly does not symbolize quality, but her role is so insignificant here that not even she could mess it up. It's not so obvious the actress has 3 different face expressions max when she is in the film for 9 minutes only (if at all) and not 90. There are other actors who are maybe more talented (or at least as) than the two male leads: Knaup, Zirner and Milberg, but all of these also do not have a great deal of screen time or good material to make an impact. It's not a rong statement to say they ahev been wasted here, especially Knaup. And the final mention goes to Alina Levshin and same is true for her. Really disappointing as I think she is one of the best from her age group here in Germany, but here she is reduced to playing the (younger) protagonist's wife and she has literally nothing to work with. This also ready shows that there was no great competence involved when making this movie. It's definitely closer to 1 star out of 5 than to 3 stars out of 5 and me giving this one a negative recommendation was honestly never in doubt. The filmmakers are to blame, maybe the actors, but most of all the audience who showed the filmmakers that they liked the film enough so that a sequel could be made. Disgusting. Really disgusting to see that we are forced to pay for films like this one and the even more garbage sequel. But I talked about that one the other day already. This one here may be slightly better, but that does not mean it's good. The occasional moments of okay entertainment or dramatic tension (like the woman shot during these riots) only seem fine because everything else you see in here is not, not because they are actually quality filmmaking. Watch something else instead.
