Angel Express (1998) User Reviews

muddled and pretentious

[cogs · 5/10 · 12 January 2002]

"Angel Express" is a silly little German film which thinks it's better than it is. Centered around the very chic underground culture of drug fiends, hookers, pimps and clubbers this is too cool for school. Directed with all the self-conscious stylings you'd expect from an inexperienced filmmaker this is pretty much just a mess. The narrative is strained through one of those everything and everyone is connected concepts and rather than elucidating this point, this idea merely serves to expose the film's shortcomings. Little less cool and a lot more character and scene development and this may have been passable.

I wish this could have been as memorable as the title

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 19 July 2017]

"Angel Express" is a German movie from 1998, so it will have its 20th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Rolf Peter Kahl, also a prolific actor, and he is still shooting films these days. This one we have here is probably among his more known efforts. It is a really short movie, stays comfortable under 80 minutes in the director's cut version i just watched. I will admit that the title sounds somewhat interesting, but then again it easily could have been all pretense and before watching the film I seriously thought this was likely because I have seen other stuff by Kahl and honestly some of it was really really bad. Admittedly, this film we have here is not as bad. But it is also not a good watch by any means. The production values are fairly low at times and the story-telling aspect just isn't convincing either. The film tries to make an impact somehow when it comes to the city of Berlin and what life there is (or was I should say given all the time that has passed). After all this was made less than 10 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The most known cast members here are probably Eva Habermann, even if her star has faded somewhat, and the pretty young Laura Tonke who was enjoying tremendous success recently at the German Film Awards. But it is not really an actors movie. It is really much more about the atmosphere and also about the ways the characters were written. From that perspective, sadly, it was an underwhelming outcome overall. I also believe that Kahl included too many characters here, especially for this runtime. Make it fewer and give them a more proper and interesting elaboration would have been the idea. I also think the film has a bit of a tendency to be defined as "for the sake of it". There were several moments where it just did not feel really authentic. Quite a bit of shame as I am always curious about movies that have a strong connection to Berlin, the city I have lived in for almost my entire life. This one is not a failure, but it is not defining in terms of that. Or with regard to anything else. Too forgettable overall and I suggest you watch something else instead.

loving homage to pulsating 1990's Berlin life

[kimkino · 10/10 · 6 August 2007]

ANGEL EXPRESS is the first feature film by RP Kahl, produced by himself with his company erdbeermundfilm – a guarantor for ambitious and enjoyable independent cinema. This debut takes a laconic and nonchalant perspective on the ambivalent lives of Berlin clubbers in the nineties – torn between (creative) self-fulfilment and (emotional) emptiness, between the hope for love and the fast kick. The film alludes to American cult novel "American Psycho" as well as to European auteur cinema à la Godard. This is exactly the reason why ANGEL EXPRESS is both, a dark society portrait and a humorous self-reflection.

The five protagonists somnambulate through Berlin's nightlife. Their personal stories are episodically interwoven, there is no linearity, it's only the music's beat which determines their rhythm. And in spite of all the people's loneliness there emerges a humour, which smiles ironically at these lives, but never gives them away. Because all these people are hungry for life. This is why ANGEL EXPRESS at first glance appears quite cool and aloof but in the end is a loving homage to the pulsating Berlin-Mitte life in the 1990s.