Apart from a few disappointing aspects, I really enjoyed the movie. I think the two main actors did an excellent job. Aaron Hildebrand (as Tommy) started out as a daredevil kind of bad guy, awed by his friend Heiko, and he kept up this attitude throughout the whole movie. It's only when the circumstances around him change for the worse, especially in the last part of the movie when he's confronted with the Neo-Nazi's who want to tow him in, that we see how, in comparison with the others, he has in fact the better character: maybe a bit streetwise, but with both feet firmly on the ground, and loyal to his friend. Hildebrand definitely has charisma and a very easy and natural way of acting.
Christian Blümel (Heiko) was very convincing too as the susceptible youngster who looses his innocence by brutal force. He's really a very promising actor, see for instance the scene where he is visited in prison by the girl he loves, he's just so moving in his bewilderment and happiness and shame all at the same time! But he especially deserves high credits for his performance during the crucial scene with the sexual assault in the showers (in uncompromising full frontal nudity!), he succeeded in making the emotional impact very believable, totally overwhelmed, not being able to counter-act and at last physically and psychologically devastated. And later on in the movie Blümel's portrayal of the slickly groomed Neo-Nazi, shouting his speech with a distorted face to a Sieg Heil-yelling mob was very blood-chilling.
On the other side there were several things amiss in this movie. For instance: to me the transition of Heiko was too abrupt. He's jolted into the isolation-cell as someone who loathes the Nazi's, but when he at last stumbles out we see him shake hands with the local Nazi-leader, and in the next scene (several years later) we suddenly see him as a Neo-Nazi-leader of his own. We don't get to witness any gradually change to make this understandable. Or are we supposed to believe that being locked up for who knows how long turns you so insane that you end up being a Nazi?
The guards in this fierce communistic prison all seemed a bit puffy and aging, as were most of the inmates, who hardly seemed a realistic physical threat to an athletic boy of twenty-something. And the escape from prison by Tommy lacked any realism whatsoever: it's totally unbelievable to me that an inmate in such a notorious and supposedly well-guarded prison can just hop into a crate (in broad daylight and among a crowd of co-workers and guards) and let himself be carried out into freedom. Weren't they supposed to check outgoing vans with dogs or something??
And then I was also a bit disappointed in the ending: after the touching scene on the roof (Tommy dying in the arms of Heiko) we abruptly change to Heiko (some undefined time later) walking briskly and with a serious face through a sunny street in an (undefined) place. That's it: the end. So what are we supposed to conclude? Did he come to his senses after Tommy's death? The fact that his hair wasn't slick anymore possibly refers to that. But then how did he escape his fierce Nazi-friends?? Or did he maybe run of to Australia (Tommy brought him the tickets right before he died). Maybe that's exactly what the director wants us to do, to brood over this, but to me this last scene doesn't work, it doesn't add up to anything, it's just confusing. If anything, I would have preferred an ending with the scene on the roof, Heiko like a Romeo with his dead Juliette, crying out his despair and anger to heaven.
All considered, the positive predominates: an emotionally involving and well acted movie.
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