Thought I'd start a 2 1/2 hour movie at 2 in the morning, see if it was any good, then pick it up after I caught some shut-eye if it started strong. Sometime around 4:30 in the morning the end credits rolled.
(38) The Baader-Meinhof Complex (2008): This film recounts the formation of the violent German terrorist organization known at the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction), which the press dubbed the Baader-Meinhof Group. The time line is roughly a ten-year period dating from just before the formation of the organization in the 1960s, through the formation and terrorist acts perpetrated, and the final outcome of the organization's original creators in the late 1970s.
This film is engaging right from the beginning and never lets up. The leaders, Andreas Baader (a very effective Moritz Bleibtreu), Ulrike Meinhof (an understated Martina Gedeck), and Gudrun Ensslin (an utterly believable Johanna Wokalek) are protesting against the establishment, particularly capitalism,the military industrial complex of the United States, and the invasion of Vietnam. They targeted various media and financial outlets that they deemed complicit in continuing the war against humans for nothing but corporate profits.
The acting is solid throughout, and maybe against better judgment find yourself sympathetic to the terrorists. Never a dull moment, this film is mostly in German, with some English, and sub-titled in English. Well worth the loss of sleep.
4 Stars
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