TAEMO Review of Mogadischu

Mogadischu (2008 TV Movie)

The ARD knows how to make a good TV-movie. (minor spoilers)

[8/10 · 1 December 2008]

It seems that everything Pro 7 (and the private stations) does wrong, when producing a TV-movie, the public-service-stations do right. Maybe because they hire good actors, directors and writers for their shows. I do not know, where to begin. The actors were top notch. Thomas Kretschmann, who we last saw as the Sea-Wolf, played Captain Jürgen Schumann in this one. And in my opinion, he was never better, he completely disappeared in the role. But so did all the other actors. Jürgen Tarrach as Hans Jürgen Wischnewski and Herbert Knaup as the GSG9 leader were good as always. Christian Berkel, who I think is one of the best German actors, played chancellor Helmut Schmidt. And although I knew he was in this movie, I did not recognize him until half way through. He wore a toupee and, I think, prosthetics, but he was nevertheless, or because of that, very good. Of all the actors Simon Verhoeven impressed me most, because of his subtle acting style. When watching him, I never thought I watched an actor at work, but a real person. That was the case with all the other actors, too, but somehow Verhoeven was little bit better. His "real" acting and that of the other actors only added to the documentary style of the movie. Sometimes I almost forgot that I was watching a staged movie. The camera was shaky and it is obvious that the director was inspired by Battlestar Galacticas camera work, which is not a bad thing. Roland Suzo Richter did a great job directing this movie, which I had hope would become a feature film. But, alas, it is not. Speaking about the director - this is what you get, when you hire a good one, namely a good movie. All the scenes were very well staged, especially the action scenes. They did not milk the stunts like the German TV shows produced by Action Concept, who always show every stunt, and be it only a guy falling from a bike, from 25 angles. I could go on and on, but why, when everything was good. 8 out of ten, because it was only a TV-movie.