One would have thought that with an excellent cast and Kida Ramadan as director a great series could be created.... But unfortunately the story is as boring as it is predictable.
Soccer player "Momo" would like to join the Bundesliga and is even on the verge of doing so. But unfortunately the family has other plans for him: he is persuaded by his cousins to commit a robbery, he is blamed and poof he finds himself in jail. There he is supposed to do business for the family. Of course he has no desire to do so, he actually wanted to live a quiet life and escape the cliché of the criminal migrant. In prison itself, "Momo" then experiences the real prison life, is beaten and mistreated by the fellow inmates and guards...
While the introduction to the story already came across as very uninspired, "Asbest" would have had a chance to shine in its main plot. But it quickly becomes apparent: the series shows us nothing new and breaks no taboos. Everything has been there before and has also been staged better in more than a handful of prison series.
The characters have no depth and the dialogues seem like words strung together lovelessly. Some of them are so shockingly bad that you seriously have to wonder how Kida Ramadan couldn't cut this dialogue from the script. Finally, the predictability of the actions of all the acting protagonists takes away any suspense from the series. Even acting greats like Wotan Wilke-Möhring and Jan Schütte seem pale in "Asbest".
Pale is also a good keyword when it comes to the quality of the production, because: "Asbest" doesn't exactly look high-quality for a series from the year 2022. The sets look very random, camera perspectives are sometimes so poorly chosen that the viewer misses important details. Reasonable SFX seems to have been completely omitted.
Even if "Asbest" doesn't want to be like 4 Blocks in the end, no comparison is allowed at this point, because: "Asbest" can not keep up here by far.
Soccer player "Momo" would like to join the Bundesliga and is even on the verge of doing so. But unfortunately the family has other plans for him: he is persuaded by his cousins to commit a robbery, he is blamed and poof he finds himself in jail. There he is supposed to do business for the family. Of course he has no desire to do so, he actually wanted to live a quiet life and escape the cliché of the criminal migrant. In prison itself, "Momo" then experiences the real prison life, is beaten and mistreated by the fellow inmates and guards...
While the introduction to the story already came across as very uninspired, "Asbest" would have had a chance to shine in its main plot. But it quickly becomes apparent: the series shows us nothing new and breaks no taboos. Everything has been there before and has also been staged better in more than a handful of prison series.
The characters have no depth and the dialogues seem like words strung together lovelessly. Some of them are so shockingly bad that you seriously have to wonder how Kida Ramadan couldn't cut this dialogue from the script. Finally, the predictability of the actions of all the acting protagonists takes away any suspense from the series. Even acting greats like Wotan Wilke-Möhring and Jan Schütte seem pale in "Asbest".
Pale is also a good keyword when it comes to the quality of the production, because: "Asbest" doesn't exactly look high-quality for a series from the year 2022. The sets look very random, camera perspectives are sometimes so poorly chosen that the viewer misses important details. Reasonable SFX seems to have been completely omitted.
Even if "Asbest" doesn't want to be like 4 Blocks in the end, no comparison is allowed at this point, because: "Asbest" can not keep up here by far.