12 Winter played in San Francisco as part of the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival. At the time, I thought that it reminded me a lot in style and approach to a German TV movie. This is not really a slight; German TV movies are often very good. Then I found out that it is, in fact, a German TV movie. The film is based on the true story of a band of very methodical and patient bank robbers, who managed to avoid capture by creating a series of misleading clues as to their identities. How they did this is pretty remarkable. I think the film adheres fairly faithfully to the facts of the case. Perhaps this is a good thing, but a little more dramatic license might have increased the tension in some scenes. Nonetheless, it is an exciting film, reminiscent at times of the crime films of the 1950s. It is well acted and directed.
