"Was tun, wenn's brennt?" or "What to Do in Case of Fire" is a German movie from 15 years ago that runs for slightly over 90 minutes without credits. The director is Gregor Schnitzler and the writer duo are Stefan Dähnert and Anne Wild. The movie scored some awards attention, including a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the German Film Awards for Martin Feifel. Unfortunately I must say I never felt this was a good watch. My main problem is probably the story. All the action from start to finish never feels realistic in terms of a team of modern terrorists with noble motives though. It is clearly manipulative in trying to convince us the police are the bad guys and the character of Klaus Löwitsch (rip) becomes one of the good guys in the end too. His character development felt really unrealistic as well. The film certainly tries to evoke emotion in the audience on several occasions and takes itself seriously as a drama too. These two aspects are really hurt by the ridiculous story-line.
The cast is pretty spectacular: Schweiger, Feifel, Uhl, Blomberg, Löwitsch and Striesow are all fairly famous here in Germany. Too bad their characters were not written in a way that they could show us their potential. I also liked how we basically knew nothing about some of the group's characters such as Doris Schretzmayer's. They probably thought. Oh the actress is not that well-known, so people won't care about her anyway. Feel kinda sorry for her. She was just there. All in all, I do not recommend the watch. In my opinion, the filmmaker's attempt to have the audience feel for the characters did not work. I really didn't care at all what happened to them and honestly, I must say I found several of them rather unlikeable. This is a mix of comedy and drama with thriller elements, but it does not elaborate in a convincing manner in any of these three areas. Thumbs down.
The cast is pretty spectacular: Schweiger, Feifel, Uhl, Blomberg, Löwitsch and Striesow are all fairly famous here in Germany. Too bad their characters were not written in a way that they could show us their potential. I also liked how we basically knew nothing about some of the group's characters such as Doris Schretzmayer's. They probably thought. Oh the actress is not that well-known, so people won't care about her anyway. Feel kinda sorry for her. She was just there. All in all, I do not recommend the watch. In my opinion, the filmmaker's attempt to have the audience feel for the characters did not work. I really didn't care at all what happened to them and honestly, I must say I found several of them rather unlikeable. This is a mix of comedy and drama with thriller elements, but it does not elaborate in a convincing manner in any of these three areas. Thumbs down.