St. Pauli Nacht (1999)

Don't leave your money at the local video store to rent "St. Pauli Nacht`, you'd better take a walk on the wild side of Hamburgs Reeperbahn - it's much more worth the deal. This episode movie lacks everything you would commonly expect from a Sönke Wortmann film, but offers a truck load of clichés, poor acting and little boring stories (writing credits: Frank Göhre) that seem to be taken from a script writing school's waste basket or from leaflets of the Hamburg Chamber of Tourism. Certainly Sönke Wortmann has watched Jarmusch's "Night on Earth` and Altman's "Short Cuts`, but did he pay attention? Maybe it's because it has been over 10 years (!) when they came out that Wortmann fails to create an authentic atmosphere where we can really sympathize with the characters like we could in the forerunner films. The connections between the episodes are uninspired and - though unbelievable - predictable as Hamburg weather conditions one minute from now. Dramaturgy - what's that?

The fun that isn't already spoilt by these deficiencies is scared away by the cast and the camera. If I wanted to portrait a specific social setting or regional atmosphere like you find it in Hamburg's unique working class neighbourhood St. Pauli, why would I cast actors that can't even disguise their native accents and then let them try to over-pronounce in a fake northern sound? Secondly I think it's okay to reminisce Edward Hopper's work in the production design, but if I wanted to enjoy "Nighthawk` for incredible 3 minutes in a single shot, I'd go to a museum and glue my back to a chair in front of the painting. I thought movies were motion pictures... This flick is a terrible waste of time that one better tries to avoid. 2 points out of ten.