"Die Herren mit der weissen Weste" or "Gentlemen in White Vests" (and there are a handful other German and English titles for this film) is a German movie from 1970s, so this one had its 45th anniversary last year already. To start with the positive, it is a very ambitious movie. The takes on crime mixed with comedy are something you won't find too often in German films around that era and the acting wasn't bad either. It#s always fun to see established actors like Mario Adorf during their really early years. The director is Wolfgang Staudte, who worked on a handful other known films at that point too. With writer Horst Wendlandt I am not familiar. The cast includes a couple big names, not just Adorf. Elsner, Erhardt, Giller and Held may be known to some too, maybe others even. The major problem here is the detail. It is ambitious yes, but every time the film goes into detail during its 90 minutes, be it either in terms of character development or comedy or just the general plot, it feels really off the mark. It is not realistic. It is not entertaining, it is just strange and bizarre and at some point this was simply not interesting enough anymore to work for a full feature film. That's why I give it a thumbs down. Quite a shame as there certainly was some potential in here. This could have been a lot better than it turned out. Not recommended.
