Baader (2002)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Christopher Roth

Writers:

Christopher Roth (writer)
Moritz von Uslar (writer)

Release Date:

17 October 2002 (Germany)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Plot Keywords:

Kidnapping | Terrorism | Movie Theater | Voice Over | Female Nudity

Awards:

1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Can Taylanlar	...	Mario (as Chan Taylanlar)
Frank Giering	...	Andreas
Laura Tonke	...	Gudrun
Hinnerk Schönemann	...	Victor
Sarah Riedel	...	Inga
Angie Ojciec	...	Claudia (as Angie Ojciek)
Bastian Trost	...	Jan
Sebastian Weberstein	...	Erwin
Ludger Blanke	...	Polizist
Birge Schade	...	Ulrike
Wolfgang Riehm	...	Tagesschausprecher
Wolfgang Ritter	...	Vollzugsbeamter
Ellen Schlootz	...	Maria
Andreas Hofer	...	Ziebland
Rudi Knauss	...	SPD Bezirksvorsitzender

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

Germany | UK

Language:

German | English | French | Arabic

Color:

Color

Certification:

Germany:12 | Italy:T

Company:

72 Film

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In the scene where the RAF members are filming each other with a Super-8 camera on a roof-top in Paris, the camera model is a Canon 310XL. This camera wasn't introduced until August 1975, but the scene is set in 1969.

Movie Connections:

Features 48 Stunden bis Acapulco (1967)

Disappointing!

There's no doubt this unfruitful movie cannot keep up with other famous films like "Munich", which comes up to the same genre.

The main character, Andreas Baader (former Leader of the RAF), is embodied by Frank Giering, who is without doubt a miscast. Baader used to be a charismatic, spleenish and aggressive Leader, who was far from being "Mister nice guy". The movie tries to establish a love-story between Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader, which is at the beginning equatable to a stereotypic Hollywood-movie. However, the history of the RAF was less-than-harmonic as the storyline pretends: Particularly Andreas Baader as a decided aggressive person never embodied a nice guy, as Frank Giering in his role suggests, but rather a wakefully psycho, who terrorised a whole nation.

Apart from the miscast of the main character, this movie is rather fiction than part of contemporary history. In fact, Baader died in prison and committed suicide. However, this movie pretends that the Leader of the RAF died on the run, which is, without doubt, a false illustration. Fiction should never be mixed up with contemporary history, mainly if the imaginary end of this movie is twice as boring as the "true story".

In short, this movie is kind of waste. Compared with the RAF, the characters symbolize a knock-off. Furthermore, the story is too far away from the historical events, which is kind of disappointing, especially as a result of the ridiculous ending. There's neither rhyme nor reason in that.