"Zwischen den Jahren" is a German theatrical movie from 2017, so nrither really new nor old already. The writer and director is Lars Henning and this was his first big screen full feature film. But he has been making (short) films and also a television movie for a long time already, so he sure is experienced and I am not surprised this one here worked out well overall despite some minor weaknesses. It runs for a bit over 1.5 hours including credits and does not drag on any occasions. This has mostly to do with the cast doing a pretty good job here. Even those actors like the stunning Cosima Henman who only have very little screen time are doing a good job. At the center of the film is Peter Kurth though. If you have seen some of his works in recent years, he usually plays kind character that have a dark past, but are struggling with life. This description is also pretty fitting here, at least to some extent. He is not all evil, but I definitely would not call him kind this time. He plays a killer released from prison and we get to watch his new life now, how he gets along (or doesn't get along) with new acquaintances, how he tries to make a living as an employee with an object security company and most of all how the shadows from his past return in the form of Karl Markovics' character. Markovics is as good as always playing the man whose family the protagonist erased about two decades ago and who only has recenge on his mind, even if he does not know exactly what it's gonna look like. It is a psychological thriller at times, but also a character study involving far more than one character only. The film lives through its simple, but well-executed overall premise I would say apart from the strong performances. Sadly, the attention to detail is not always 100% great, which is why I have to deduct two stars from five. There are some strong scenes like the one that has the two men meeting at the restaurant or also the first time Markovics sees him in the subway, but there are also ideas in the script that don't work out too well. One would be basically everything involving the main character getting close to his former gang members again and the crime resulting from it. The film did not need that. It was easily visible nonetheless that the main character still carries a lot of aggresion and violence with him. And that the ghosts of his past (not just Markovics) will keep haunting him.
But also the fact how the other employee gets shot during said armed robbery/burglary shows that everybody ho gets close to the character of Becker will inevitably get hurt, not necessarily by him, but also by him, sometimes even psychologically if we take a look at how he deals with the woman who surprisingly ends up liking him. Moving towards the end, when she almost gets raped by Markovics' character, this was perhaps the moment I liked the less. It did not fit too well. I mean had he tried to kill her because she means something to Becker, this would have made more sense. There's broken windows, a killed dog (yep once again!) and other acts of violence throughout the film that don't always make this a watch that is easy to stomach. But it's not just the loud moments. It is also sad to see how the main character actually finds two people that seem to like him and are ready to make a connection, but he is clearly pushing them away and it is not just Markovics' character that is the reason for that. On the other side, however, sometimes there are moments when he acts totally different and not as indifferent and mean as you see Becker overall, especially when it comes to Striebeck's character. One moment he uses the c-word, but when something bad happens to her, then he is ready no talk to her about everything no holds barred. Or he is also not left cold by what his crime did to Dahlmann, basically destroyed his life, as we see when he has to throw up in the bathroom. All this eventually accumulated into the big showdown between the two antagonists. You could say that Markovics and also Henning did a good job here because yeah Markovics really has so little screen time that it is debatable if he is lead or supporting despite the huge impact he has on the story. Would the film worked without him too? Probably yes with further elaborations in other fields, maybe a bigger (hopefully better) story line about his old friends from the biker gang. But luckily it did not have to. Markovics is always a joy to watch no matter what kind of character he plays. And Kurth has great recognition value too and I would not say it is much of a problem if he is typecast a bit most of the time as he beings the range to come up with some fine nuances. Overall, definitely one of the better German films from 2017, one that stems from a genre that German filmmakers sometimes have a pretty difficult time coming up with quality work. And even if this one here is far from perfect, it manages nicely with a lot of the subtleties. Go watch it. I give it a thumbs-up, but you should not be expecting greatness or anything, the imdb rating is fairly accurate at somewhere between 6 and 7 I guess.
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