Shiny_Flakes: The Teenage Drug Lord (2021) User Reviews

One of the Most Fascinating Crime Incidents

[erenidmb · 8/10 · 8 August 2021]

This is a documentary but the scenes where they use his real room where everything happened, realistic props and original chat application, old Wordpress was a nice touch. Sometimes I felt like he was actually doing it at the moment. Which breaks the documentary boredom a bit.

I like the fact how Maximillian talks, how he bitters in speech when the topic is authority or things make him get arrested. Also Interviewers were solid. They were looking for the answers.

Crazy..

[filmfreak_london · 8/10 · 6 August 2021]

If this guy was paid in Bitcoin all the time and he managed to store them somewhere safely.. regarding the crazy increase of Bitcoin worth he must be crazy rich.. for those who don't know what that means google Bitcoin worth increase of that past years ;) One Bitcoin in 2014 when he was active was worth around $700.. today one Bitcoin is worth $40,000 (yes 40k) it's getting even higher.. so imagine. He could be a billionaire.. pretty sure.

Pretty entertaining!

[Kate-Parks · 8/10 · 9 August 2021]

I found it pretty entertaining and I couldn't resist chuckling because law enforcement was so annoyed about Max and at certain points even personally offended about his lack of remorse. Their demeanor and facial expressions were the best!

Doco great, Max not so much

[Chriper7 · 7/10 · 15 August 2021]

As for the documentary, it was very well made and engaging. I didn't plan on watching it, but I was too late pushing cancel after the preview and found myself watching the lot!

As for Max, I found him irritating. I've looked through the other reviews and people generally see him as some sort of hero, but working in mental health, I just found him to be a gloating narcissist.

Just out of interest, the amount of bitcoin he made - 15,188 - if he kept all that and transferred it to US dollars in April 2021 he would've had $987,000,000, a few thousand short of a billion dollars. Where did all that go?

Boy next door looks...criminal genius

[bsant54 · 9/10 · 3 August 2021]

I hate to say this but during the show I dreaded when the Police would catch up with him. After all, he is a Drug Lord.

Good looking innocent teen and behind that pretty boy face lurks a criminal mastermind.

How he pulled it off for so long without being detected is testament to that kids brains. Smart guy. He can be anything he wants.

Dedication for sure. Holed up in his small bedroom working day and night for years and not going nuts in the process is impressive.

Steely will for sure. Good show I enjoyed it.

The last indictment I doubt he was involved. I mean why would he set up shop again in Leipzig?

That would be stupid. Not his style. The Lone Ranger at heart is what he is.

Interesting documentary

[nicorip22 · 7/10 · 21 August 2021]

It's crazy to think what this person did but also for so long without being found out. Very interesting documentary.

Documentary is well done

[criscal · 8/10 · 5 August 2021]

It looks like the production team interviewed the guy running the shop and then displayed the video material to the people who had to deal with him professionally wise (police, psychologist, prison warden etc.) for comment. This gives the documentation a very consistent look and feel.

Recreating his bedroom that he used to run the store from is good for illustration and beats the regular documentary by using the real perpetrator.

The "drug lord" gives the impression of a charming and eloquent young man. The documentary though does not question, whether this guy might be a narcisist, who loves to present himself and they are giving him a platform to do just this.

Interesting documentary, but the "hero" makes it difficult to watch

[termind · 7/10 · 21 November 2021]

It's definitely and interesting subject, but Max comes off extremely arrogant and without even the tiniest amount of regret. He displays sociopathic tendencies and thus the ending didn't really surprise me. He clearly sees nothing wrong in his actions. I'm not really surprised, as he is probably the product of his upbringing. It says something about his parents when the investigators said Max's mom didn't enter his sons room for over a year. That is absolutely not normal.

Gosh darn it I liked the kid, cops not so much

[ztigr · 9/10 · 19 August 2021]

Very well done documentary with good interpreters/voice actors. I found Max really likeable and not arrogant as the cops seemed to want to characterize him. Yes drugs are illegal and dangerous, dont do drugs. But as one person said, drug companies have been doing the same thing in tall buildings for years. This kid had talent and motivation and saw what others didnt.

I found the police to be somewhat arrogant, save maybe one, because of their almost refusal to acknowledge how smart he was and how bad luck played into his getting caught.

Now if after release he starts up again, welll that's a different discussion.

druglord nextdoor???

[ops-52535 · 7/10 · 13 August 2021]

Or in my own house, by my own kids....? Have a look at this german production, its extremely subjectivly made, but still tells a good story about the minor dealing drugs via data machine. '' i bet my life'' there are even younger and an astronomical number of individuals out there dealing with the same stuff.

One of the best made documentaries

[arrehedin · 10/10 · 18 August 2021]

Super well made and an intriguing way to tell a story. Felt so genuine and a real close up

Well done Ewa & Co.

Good story but bad execution

[Darvener · 6/10 · 25 August 2021]

Documentary movie 'Shiny_Flakes: The Teenage Drug Lord' was directed by Eva Müller and Michael Schmitt. This 1 hour and 35 minutes long documentary movie is about a teenage boy (Maximiliam Schimdt) who wanted to create a Silk Road competitor on a surface web in his childhood bedroom.

This movie was interesting because this, created in a teen age certainly required a high IQ or very good managing skills. This movie showed us terrible things about his mother and that she wasn't interested in Maximilian because she didn't know that he was running a drug business from his room.

This movie was interesting but a few scenes weren't executed well. During the movie you will see that sometimes they skipped time when it wasn't very necessary, some scenes were not executed well, edit was sometimes too fast that if you didn't know what he is doing at the moment, you will not probably able to read it because it will disappear very fast and the ending could be shorter.

Story of this movie was interesting but the execution in some scenes was not mastered.

6/10, 60%

Boring

[juan_moran · 5/10 · 27 August 2021]

He is slow for NORMAL LIFE, LOOONG AND BORING, UN MUCHACHO CON CLAROS PROBLEMAS M3NTAL3S.

How to sell drugs online (fast)

[firatberkk · 9/10 · 10 August 2021]

The most entertaining documentary I have watched so far.

Max is a genius, he is pretending like he does not care anything, but I believe he intents to convince people to he will not get entangled any further trouble.

Once again, I genuinely liked the documentary and recommend it.

Too young, too much time

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 4 August 2021]

Actually when it comes to time served, some probably will argue not enough time served. Now starting right off with that: depending on your moral understanding and on your willingness to run with the "whataboutisms" Max fka as the Teenage Drug Lord (or Shiny Flakes I reckon) also dishes out: If I didn't do it, someone else would.

Again I am not telling you how to feel about this, because only you know what your morals are and if this is just an excuse or a legit argument. I know where I stand on this. One thing is for sure, he may have served time, but it's not like he seems to have learned his lesson(s). There are new allegations of him dealing or rather distributing again.

The documentary is really in depth though, so no matter what you think ... it will try to give you both sides. And it asks things relentlessly ... even the things Max does not want to reveal. At times therefor it almost feels like a mockumentary ... like this is just made up. Some of the things that happened seem way too far out there ... but then again "stranger than fiction" and all that.

Interesting to say the least and maybe more controversial to some than to others ...

Amazing

[aysroseh · 10/10 · 3 August 2021]

It's perfect, the soundtrack is good, the look and the way the story is well told, showing the opinion of the police, and Max.

The narrative is good, very well done, the bad part is that we don't know their plans, because they don't count in the movie.

10/10, the soundtrack fixes the few issues.

Just wanted to say this

[cawoti · 10/10 · 3 August 2021]

He should have told what is he going to do further. I mean the money is still there. I was following his story from the day the first news about his site came out. A logical guy but still managed to do many programmers like us only dream of so I must say a courageous one too. Love the documentary by the way. He could follow the steps of Edward Snowden now just start something on YouTube or get into cybersecurity.

Max isnt't a bad guy!

[RKade78 · 10/10 · 4 August 2021]

Lass es dir gut gehen, Max! Pass auf dich auf, bro!

German teenage Drug Dealer Doku amazes

[cjp-9 · 10/10 · 25 March 2024]

To give you my rating up-front: This is one of the Best Dokus I've seen on Netflix. The iMDB rating of currently 7.3 does not do it just. Why? I think it's a stroke of genius to let the boy tell his story himself.

Direction: 10 of 10 Artwork: 8 of 10 Story: 10 of 10 Camera 10 of 10

Made me give this movie a score of 10 stars.

**** Spoiler ****

The story that 18 year old Max is telling the audience couldn't have been better suited and is in fact so incredulous that you can hardly believe the facts that are pouring while the movie is continously driven by the perpetrators voice!; One detail after the other unfolds. You can clearly see that Max is a person without any self reflection, without an understanding of justice that has suffered by the neglect of his parent's. At the same time you can't help but admire the guy for the balls and the work he invested in Shiny Flakes while he established a multi million drug selling business that he _alone_ operated and ran out of his room in his parent's apartment.

Well made movie but the kid is silly

[tomek-02481 · 8/10 · 16 September 2023]

I had good time watching it. Maybe the kid will become a Hollywood actor once he gets out of prison (again) given his lack of empathy. I'm glad he agreed to do the documentary, but I'm not sure of his reasons. I think he just did for fun, just like he built his business. He's asocial, selfish and anarchic. He claims to be smart but the two biggest mistakes that police used against him were caused by him not taking enough security precautions. He never prepared for the worst. How much sense does it make to build the biggest drug empire if you're in zero control? We've all seen Pablo Escobar in Narcos, right? If you do shady things you want to stay under the radar. Makes me wonder if him building the biggest drug business make him really stupid or really smart? I don't see a stroke of genius in his strategy. Seems like the fact that he hasn't been caught for a year can be only attributed to the police not knowing about the website at all.