Exterritorial

You may be surprised to learn the star of this gritty little sci-fi thriller is a former German special forces operative who served in Afghanistan. Yes-German special forces did fight in the Afghan war. They weren't just brewing beer and designing efficient cars; they were out there in the dust with US and British units, kicking down doors in classified joint operations. Just don't expect Berlin to tell you much about it-German military missions are about as secretive as your nan's naughty black-and-white photos.

And that quiet professionalism makes Exterritorial all the more intriguing. Here we've got a hard-as-nails ex-Kommando Spezialkräfte soldier-a woman with a backstory the script only hints at, but which radiates from her weathered expression like desert heat off tarmac. She's the good guy. Mostly.

Add to that a villain who speaks like he's read too much Nietzsche and smells like petrol, and a wild card sidekick, Irina (played by Lera Abova), whose apparently shifting loyalties make for some proper "what the hell is happening?" moments. It's got that familiar European sci-fi mood: part haunted tech lab, part black-ops bunker, with a dash of Black Mirror unease. There's a small but clever plot about weaponised memory, a mysterious object from the stars, and a question mark over who's really telling the truth.

And yes-there are high-tech gadgets galore. Some are clearly intended to help us suspend disbelief about the starlet's erratic behaviour (don't worry, she's not losing it-just temporarily synchronised with a pulsar from Andromeda or something). The techy stuff gives it pace and that sense of "maybe this is happening just five years from now."

It's a German film, dubbed into English. But worry not: modern dubbing isn't the comedy gold it used to be. This isn't like those classic Bruce Lee numbers where the lips would finish the sentence sometime after the credits rolled (don't you just miss them though? Real class...). No, this is slick, well-timed, and the voices match the mood beautifully.

Overall, Exterritorial is tight, satisfying, and a bit mad in the best way. It's one of those foreign gems that streamers are increasingly brave enough to show us-and we're better off for it. There's grit, action, sci-fi smarts, and a lead actor who probably still carries sand in her boots from Helmand Province.

Definitely worth a watch. Just maybe don't ask the German government what it's really about.

Since several years now, the movie industry is literally invaded by a gigantic, huge, strong female characters spree. Long, long after the DNA of this kind of movies, I mean NIKITA, in 1990. Of course there were the seventies exploitation, grindhouse flicks - women in jail or vigilante rape and revenge plots. Tons of them, but it was the glorious and forever lost seventies, a period when everything was permitted. That said this German tv movie is not that bad, a bit lame yes, but not that lousy. The characters rather convincing and the directing honest, straight. I was rather satisfied, but unfortunately the ending is so predictable and forgettable too. I expected something a bit more original, more unpredictable.

An odd little film which, for a variety of reasons, may only appeal to male viewers with time to kill. The plot seems to revolve around an ex supermodel who later became a Special Forces operative overseas and throws a mean left hook. She misplaces her child in, of all places, a US embassy (!), and then has to retrieve him by moving invisibly through the embassy mainly via the roof and windows. Like a cartoon hero. Along the way she has many wild adventures, and meets another wannanbee supermodel. And it is in German, a Netflix foreign film. Which in 2020-21, guaranteed quality -- these days, not so much. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

I cannot accept this movie's premise as it is. We know that this single-parent mom, a German white woman, a former Special Forces soldier, loves her son so much after her husband died. We can understand how she loves her son. But at the very beginning of this movie, this supposedly well-trained, very lethal Special Forces soldier proves herself not to be a careless person. She is not as good as an ordinary housewife and mother. She almost lost her kid in the subway when she was talking on the phone. Then she commited a more ser serious and unforgivable mistake in the American Embassy. She allowed her little kid to play in the playroom, alone, and left to go checking out her appointment. There's no other parents in that playroom when she left. How possible? It's like you leave a child in an unattended vehicle, or leave a kid in a nobody around playground in a park.

In order to create the leading role losing her child in a security-tight American Embassy, the screenplay writer and director, Christian Zübert, has decided to give us such a ridiculous scenario, a highly unlikely and impossible premise.

The story line has been done before so basically it's the delivery that can make it a good or bad movie. In this case, the action, the emotions, and overall acting was spot on.

First off the main character is painted as a grueling soldier and through the movie you can see why but at the same token she takes a beating! She you praise her for her determination and strength.

When it comes to the story, it was well written. At first it was corny at best ( bad wording I know) but then in the end it ties in nicely and everything is explained with no loose ends. So I won't spoil anything but just watch till the end and you can see how it plays!

So yes, recommend on a rainy day.