"Renn, wenn du kannst" is a German movie from 2010, so this one had its fifth anniversary last year already. The director if this 110-minute movie is Dietrich Brüggemann and he also wrote the script together with his sister Anna. Anna is also the actress who plays the female protagonist, a cello player stuck between two very different men. These are played by Jacob Matschenz and Robert Gwisdek. While I have never been a big fan of his father, I still like the younger Gwisdek and his approach to acting, even if you must admit that in this film here he has really great material to work with, but he also nails pretty much all of his scenes. Matschenz, on the other hand, did not have such strong material to work with and the film is a bit underwhelming in terms of his character. It's not really his fault but more because of the writing, but his performance isn't really helping either. Oh well, in my opinion it was so much more about Brüggemann's and Gwisdek's characters. By the way the trio reunited only two years later for another Dietrich Brüggemann movie, "Drei Zimmer/Küche/Bad", but I thought that one was really garbage, while this one we have here is actually pretty nice thanks to the performances and other aspects.
I also liked the music for example and the last shot was kinda perfect. They will all go their own paths, but in our minds they stay together sitting as three. The story here, i.e. the overall plot, is a very strong component. I was never bored, but felt well-entertained throughout the entire film. Yes there were sequences that may have been a bit over the top, like the Heaven's Gate part at the end, but it's not too many and they also aren't that bad so that I would consider giving the film a weaker rating. On the contrary, the combined effort by everybody here gets this one actually closer to a ****/***** than a **/*****. I cannot deny Brüggemann's looks were also helping things. And the one thing you see in here are actual character transformations and I am talking about stuff that felt pretty authentic. The interactions never felt fake and the conflicts never felt unauthentic, which is maybe the Brüggemanns' biggest achievement here. The overall outcome is a convincing movie with a handful fairly memorable moments, a character study that is a definite contender for making it onto the list of best German films of 2010. I think you should check it out and I hope this is the level of quality Brüggemann will go for in his future works and not the one from the 2012 film I mentioned previously. "Run If You Can" is very much worth seeing.
I also liked the music for example and the last shot was kinda perfect. They will all go their own paths, but in our minds they stay together sitting as three. The story here, i.e. the overall plot, is a very strong component. I was never bored, but felt well-entertained throughout the entire film. Yes there were sequences that may have been a bit over the top, like the Heaven's Gate part at the end, but it's not too many and they also aren't that bad so that I would consider giving the film a weaker rating. On the contrary, the combined effort by everybody here gets this one actually closer to a ****/***** than a **/*****. I cannot deny Brüggemann's looks were also helping things. And the one thing you see in here are actual character transformations and I am talking about stuff that felt pretty authentic. The interactions never felt fake and the conflicts never felt unauthentic, which is maybe the Brüggemanns' biggest achievement here. The overall outcome is a convincing movie with a handful fairly memorable moments, a character study that is a definite contender for making it onto the list of best German films of 2010. I think you should check it out and I hope this is the level of quality Brüggemann will go for in his future works and not the one from the 2012 film I mentioned previously. "Run If You Can" is very much worth seeing.