Plan B (2016) User Reviews

That's how action is done right!

[IMDbKeepsDeletingMyReviews · 7/10 · 20 June 2017]

This film truly is a miracle. Why, you want to ask? Well, consider this:

It is the year 2017, and action cinema is struggling. We've seen "Taken", we've seen Jason Bourne come back to the silver screen, we keep seeing all those Disney movies coming out, and while they all have to offer a lot of production value, they all fail at one single thing: the action.

See, when it comes to action, good stuff is hard to come by. That is because it is hard and expensive to film good action. I'm not talking about those cut orgies like in "Taken" or the "Bourne" movies, I'm talking about believable action like in "John Wick" or, ultimately, the good old Hong Kong stuff. Yes, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao would all be proud to see that some unknown German filmmakers understood what they tried to show the world. "Plan B" offers some fight scenes that you won't find in any contemporary film in the western world, and I know that's a bold statement, only amplified by the fact that this is a German film. And since the action team behind "Plan B" has some experience in the Hollywood stunt world, it's probably no wonder that someone like Heidi Moneymaker (stunt double for Scarlett Johansson in "The Avengers" and wife of "John Wick" director Chad Stahelski) makes a well-choreographed and outright amazing appearance in the film. After seeing her, I half expected Keanu Reeves to pop into frame, give some dry one-liner and walk away. But let's not divert too much.

The acting is OK to good (with some exceptions), the cinematography excellent, the soundtrack an astonishing time travel back to the 80s, the atmosphere somewhat reminding of a modern fairy-tale and the action is a blast! Forget these narrow shaky cam shots we all know and hate - this time you get your ten beat combos filmed in wide shots, lots of awfully hard falls and breath-taking speed and precision. It's like Hong Kong action cinema suddenly re-spawned in Berlin, Germany!

The story isn't the highlight of "Plan B", but it still offers more than just a playground for some fights to happen. We have pretty colorful characters, a lovely retro feeling with awesome music, some juicy gangster intrigue and some nice twists - and I honestly haven't seen those in any Jackie Chan movie yet. So don't listen to the nay-sayers, grab a big bag of popcorn, an ice-cold six pack and enjoy one of the most unusual German films of the decade! 7/10!

Tries to be 80's and is certainly stylish but ultimately pointless

[stroggos · 5/10 · 28 October 2017]

I'm a huge fan of tacky 80's stuff. Give me the synths, give me the neon lights, the glaring colors. I'm also a huge fan of ridiculous movies that don't take themselves to seriously and that are shockful of over-the-top-action. "Plan B: Scheiss auf Plan A" has both... the 80's vibes and the ridiculous action, but nevertheless I found myself disappointed.

The story is simple: Three friends who are stunt men and their agent accidentally get tangled up in a crime plot surrounding the evil crime lord "Gabriel". In an almost video-game-like manner, the four friends have to fight through four stages to find Gabriel's safe. While they are hunting down Gabriel's treasures, they are also being chased by the police...

There's a lot to like about this movie. First and foremost the fact that this is a great action piece that doesn't come out of the usual mainstream Hollywood circles and that therefore breathes some fresh air into the genre. And then the whole 80's nostalgia and the general style, which is beautifully extravagant.

That said, the plot is far too random, even for a movie that takes obvious inspiration from B movies. A little more coherence would have been necessary. Moreover, while the action is INTERESTING, it is also not compelling—and that's ultimately the movie's downfall since action is what you're really in for with 'Plan B'. Our three stunt men protagonists (all of which are actually stunt men in Hollywood) certainly have a great sense of physicality, but the fight choreographies are a little disingenuous and at times genuinely boring. A lot of straightforward hitting and kicking, but relatively little variety. Also, on the acting front: While our three stunt men are quite likable characters and you do relate to them, the whole energy between the group members seems a little fake and unconvincing. And some of the jokes they make amongst each other are rather dull...

My recommendation is to watch this movies with friends to have a few good laughs over a beer. It's not a must-see, but it's certainly fun and short-lived background entertainment, made with a cool sense of style.

Action movie for action fan

[phanthinga · 7/10 · 7 March 2019]

Plan B: Scheiß auf Plan A is my first action movie from German and while that fact don't add anything to the enjoyment I got out from the movie it definitely add Germany onto my list of action movie from country that I will look forward to in the future. The movie is very tongue in cheek and driven by old action movie and 80s culture when one of the main character Can casually recreate Stallone iconic catchphrase: You are the disease...... from Cobra in German anytime he wants. The plot is not original but again I don't think most people watch action movie for the plot so the chemistry between the four main character and the action are what make this movie worth watching in my opinion.

The makers are living the characters dream, but for the audience it is closer to a nightmare

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 24 March 2019]

"Plan B: Scheiß auf Plan A" or "Plan B" is a German German-language movie from 2016, so neither really new nor really old and this one runs for 105 minutes or so, a bit longer than it says here on imdb, but yeah not much. I will spare you the names of the people who wrote, directed and produced this short film, but it was more than I'd expect. At least one of them is also playing a main character here. These actors at the center of the film are certainly no big names. Actually, there are no big names in here. Julia Dietze is maybe the one that comes closest to such a description looking at some of her other works and I guess it is for a reason that she plays the only female character in this very male-centered movie that has more than a few seconds screen time. Oh I forgot Gedeon Burkhard too, he has worked with Tarantino and I guess that is more than all other male actors here say about themselves. Now as for the story, we initially have a trio of relatively young martial artists who want to make their own martial arts movie, but just won't get lucky with the producers until they eventually get involved in a story of crime, kidnapping and other offenses that has some dubious crooks kidnap one of the gang (plus a mysterious blonde woman) and the other three (yep there is a replacement) have to commit a certain crime for these gangsters in order to free their friend. And they do not really have a choice. So yeah, you could say for sure this is a crime movie, then also that there are martial arts aspects here, but I really don't care for fight films, so I cannot really say how good/bad they were. As for the film as a whole, I don't think it was a failure, but some moments felt pretty wrong I must say. I was not a fan of the narration at all for example, but yeah this aspect is only in it at the beginning and end, so it is tolerable. Still the movie drags more than it should have. It clearly tries to take the guilty pleasure fun film, maybe even cult movie pat, but it is only partially successful as such. There are more weaknesses than strong moments in my opinion and I also struuggled with the protagonists. They were too physically gifted to be seen as likable fools, but also not really alpüha enough to be seen as no-hostage-taken kind of characters à la Liam Neeson. Oh by the way, Laurent Daniels is in this film and this comment goes especially out to fans of the German daily soap opera Gute Zeiten Schlechte Zeiten, not today, but already 20 years ago or so when he was much younger and had not half the muscles he has now. You hardly recognize him. I know I almost didn't if that name had not soounded familiar. Apart from that, I must say I am also not a huge fan of the title here. It was a close call for me eventually not if I would recommend this film, but on the contrary if I thought it was just weak or really bad with my rating. I went for the former. All in all, you should absolutely skip the watch here and I think the rating here on imdb is too high and the film is also getting much more attention than it deserves. It is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth and another problem was that gimmicky characters were alreaty the best you could get. There is not really one single performance that did win me over. Go for something else instead.

Amazing action-comedy including a lot of passion and lifeblood

[Kati25793 · 8/10 · 13 June 2017]

Just saw the movie and I had so much fun!!! Yes, I was a bit skeptical because Martial-Arts or action movies are not the kind of movies I like to watch, but I'm glade that my male friends dragged me to the cinema! Of course you can tell, that three of the main characters are no professional actors,but the boys are very likable and authentic. And those action scene made up for it even more. All fights were brilliant and very nice to watch. You can see that the boys are very experienced stuntmen.

I hope that these guys get a chance from the (German) audience! The fight scenes were brilliant, the humour was great, the boys were awesome and likable. All in all it's a very nice movie to watch with friends and lots of popcorn!

Awesome Action Movie with quite a lot of humor

[loliger_affe · 9/10 · 4 January 2018]

Nice film with funny and cool elemnts. worth to watch with friends, family, alone..

Only bad thing I noticed was that the dialouge is a little bit clipped, so the whole film doesn't look real, more like scripted.



sorry for bad english.. am german

One of the best Martial Arts films in recent memory

[rcp002 · 10/10 · 19 November 2017]

When I first walked into this film, I had no idea what to expect. I had never heard of this film and just watched it because I had already bought a festival pass at the Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival.

Let me pre-face this review by saying that I grew up on action films and martial arts cinema. When I watched Plan B, I was blown away. The main attraction of the film is of course it's martial arts - and it is AMAZING. The fight scenes are like a throwback to the days of Bruce Lee and early Jet Li in that it isn't filled with headache-inducing cuts but all fight scenes are from mostly a single side-camera view. The athleticism, speed and power of the three main characters are a sight to behold. Out of the three, the star is Korean-German Cha Lee Yoon who is every bit as good as current Tony Jaa or Iko Uwais. That's not to take away from Can Aydin and Phong Giang, who are both also tremendous. Part of the reason why the action is so great is because the Reel Deal stunt crew is just that, a real stunt team made up of these three magnetic young men.

It's not just the martial arts though - these three stuntmen are loaded with charisma and the film is funny as hell. You can really notice that these three guys are best friends in real life. The film is loaded which hilarious moments interspersed between the incredible action sequences and the acting is very good as well.

Overall, this film has the best martial arts sequences in recent memory, especially for a western film. I highly recommend it for anybody who is a fan of martial arts, comedy or action films.

Healthy naïve fun

[abisio · 8/10 · 8 February 2021]

Three martial arts and wannabe stunt men and their manager get accidentally involved in criminal vs criminal kidnapping and are forced to retrieve four clues in order to save on of their friends. Add to this some corrupt and rogue cops and a few betrayals and lots of really good staged fights and you get good fun for over an hour and a half The guys are pretty naïve and keep repeating cliched from every classic action movie. They are very good fighting but not particularly smart so they make lots of mess until achieve their goal. It is not an great movie nor a Jackie Chan one; but very close. Fights are good; the guys have just enough sympathy to carry the movie and there produce some funny moments. In brief; there are far worse ways to spend some free time. This is not regretable.

Action - go

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 19 August 2020]

This is not supposed to be high art. This is supposed to entertain and delight you - and serve you some very fine action (choreography). And it delivers on those things. Humor is in the eye of the beholder, so it'll depend on how much silliness you can withstand. If you can and relish in it, there's another factor for you to be entertained by this.

We should not build to much or expect to much of the story. It's quite simple and easy to follow. We should also not be too judgemental on German genre movies. Esepcially if they can be so much fun as this. Yes there are flaws, quite a few of them. But while you could start picking this apart, you could use the time, just having fun - like the actors and everyone seemingly involved in this had! Good for those guys and anyone who likes action movies - I was almost being being too tough on the movies beginning and how over the top it was - until they pulled the curtain and I was like "ok, they're not takng themselves too seriously, we are all in on it"! Let's go and let's do this ...