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Title: Balloon (2018)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
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Friedrich Mücke | ... | Peter Strelzyk |
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Karoline Schuch | ... | Doris Strelzyk |
| David Kross | ... | Günter Wetzel | |
| Alicia von Rittberg | ... | Petra Wetzel | |
| Thomas Kretschmann | ... | Oberstleutnant Seidel | |
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Jonas Holdenrieder | ... | Frank Strelzyk |
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Tilman Döbler | ... | Andreas 'Fitscher' Strelzyk |
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Christian Näthe | ... | Hauptmann Heym |
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Till Patz | ... | Peterchen Wetzel |
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Ben Teichmann | ... | Andreas Wetzel |
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Ronald Kukulies | ... | Erik Baumann |
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Emily Kusche | ... | Klara Baumann |
| Sebastian Hülk | ... | Oberfeldwebel Lesch | |
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Gernot Kunert | ... | Oberstleutnant Schirra |
| Ulrich Brandhoff | ... | Oberstleutnat Tornow (as Ulrich Friedrich Brandhoff) | |
In the summer of 1979, in Thüringen, in East Germany, two families put together a crazy plan. They are desperate to leave the DDR for the 'West' and plan to flee in a homemade hot air balloon. After sewing and tinkering for weeks, the amateurs make their first attempt. Meters from the West German border, their balloon suffers from the rain and crash lands. Luckily, they manage to avoid being caught by the police. However, the wreckage from their escape attempt is found and that triggers a desperate manhunt. The tension rises as the families determine to try again, and a race against time ensues. On the one hand, the authorities, desperate to track down the traitors, become aware that a second attempt is being planned. On the other, the would-be escapees, conscious of the search drawing ever nearer, need to build a more robust, weatherproof balloon - and avoid leaving too many clues.
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The premise is thrilling: people trying to flee a dictatorship with a hot-air balloon they make themselves... in secret. This story is actually a true story that took place in Thuringia, a part of the German Democratic Republic (communist East Germany). The movie is, unfortunately, an ironed-out piece of story-telling with added corny clichés that made some of the people in the movie theater laugh - even though the story is dead-serious! This is bad! Yes, it is very bad. The acting is so card-board like, it is impossible to take the actors seriously. Even if the story is set in Thuringia, a region where people speak German with a very distinct accent, the actors don't even try speaking with this accent for the sake of credibility (Imagine a movie set in Alabama in the US South in which all actors speak like New Yorkers - that is how misplaced the actors' accent is!). The script writer added a laughable romantic subplot to the story that was truly unnecessary. The film's music is full of pathos and emotion, so much of it that it becomes ludicrous. It is sad to see an exciting real-life story so badly adapted to the screen.