Kundschafter des Friedens

Like the agents in this movie, many of the actors in this movie were reactivated. Roles for OAP thespians are pretty thin on the ground -- and have always been. In the case of Jürgen Prochnow, this is practically the first time I have seen him since Das Boot.

The plot idea is brilliant -- Germany's secret service has a serious problem in far-away "Kadschikistan" and has to reactivate a troupe of former East German agents for their "contacts in the field".

Like in so many German comedies, they sort of forgot about a small but esssential ingredient -- a good script, ideally one containing witty dialogues. So off they fly into some former Soviet boondocks where everybody speaks with excessively guttural accents, and women are treated like in a Channel 4 documentary. The former nemeses (plural of Nemesis, I looked it up) eventually rally together against a common foe, roll credits. Frankly, I suspect that German movies suffer from too much benevolent public financing, and not enough I-want-my-money-back investors.