A Friend of Mine

The movie business in general tries to stick to the formulas that are known to work, and German films are no exception. Sometime in the mid-90s, Till Schweiger started to mass-produce comedy-drama hybrid movies and it seems that this is the way to go nowadays. "A Friend Of Mine" is full of great cinematography, moody and melancholic songs, a very slow pace and a lot of pseudo-philosophical garbage. But taking a few typical, well worn-out formulas doesn't always make for a great film. You can have a slow, subtle and gentle movie and it's brilliant ("Before Sunrise") and you can do the same and fail miserably ("A Friend Of Mine"). The story line is extremely uneventful and the characters unconvincing. Many parts of the script don't relate to the evolution of the story at all and are just puzzling at best. One thing proved: It takes a Jim Jarmusch to turn a story going nowhere into something very watchable.