Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 10
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 46
Based on actual events but fictionalized for dramatic effect, this powerful film from director Frieder Schlaich charts the struggles of West African refugee Frederic Otomo (Isaach De Bankole) as he fights to survive intolerance in the streets of Stuttgart, Germany. Unable to work because he lacks the proper documentation, Otomo is forced to rely on charity until his frustration leads to violence and he breaks the arm of the law.
Nov 24, 2000 Wide
Nov 28, 2006
All Critics (11) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (10) | Rotten (0) | DVD (1)
The film doesn't believe the police deserved to die (or that the ticket inspector should have been assaulted), but then again it doesn't believe a society should so treat a man that this is what he comes to do.
Much of the sense of size in this account of an immigrant worker, who is only one among many thousands in Germany, comes from the performance by Isaach de Bankole.
The messages about racism get a bit ham-handed, but the acting and sense of dread are powerful.
You do get a sense of a German society that is still amazingly bureaucratic and authoritarian.
A bleak and powerful work, one we probably need more than ever these days.
Documents the institutionalized racism and xenophobia that painted one man into a corner, while never excusing the terrible means by which he took his final escape.
Although Otomo is clearly intended for German audiences, the film nevertheless raises issues confronted by every Westernized nation.
Racial profiling is alive and well, not just in real life, but more and more at the movies.
A riveting German film about the dehumanized treatment of refugees.
I was impressed by the decision to make Otomo a bit of an anti-hero, seeming aware that in desperate times, good people may say or do things outside the norm.
Another one from Germany and immigration. This one is apparently based in a true story of a african man of Camerun who was running away from his country because his family had been supportive of the german military during their rule. The central point of the movie is the human factor and the value of the human
February 27, 2009
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