The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008) User Reviews (130)

a great film that never could have been made in America

[giantpanther · 8/10 · 27 September 2009]

I liked this film primarily of how much it seemed to buck the formulaic American plot system. Don't get me wrong some American movies are cool, but they mostly all adhere to the same boring standards.

This film was incredibly bleak and honest, which I respected very much. Also it required that you think for yourself and develop your own opinions.

The plot revolves around a group of young people who go out to try to make a difference and yet don't really accomplish anything at all. I can't give away too much but I thought this was just beautiful and complex film-making. Very intelligent, it never tried to be cute or force any ideas on you, it simply was.

I know this is a vague review, but if you feel like seeing an intelligent complex drama then you must see this. Go German cinema!

Never pleasant to watch

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 8/10 · 15 May 2009]

I wish to clear up any mistake my summary for this might lead to: This is not poorly done. As for this being good or not, that is perhaps a little more subjective, as it may depend on your opinion of the RAF. This is another of the German films of recent years dealing with awful national situations of theirs, from a couple, to numerous, decades back. Whether it's therapeutic, apologetic, a third option or a mix of several that drives this trend, is up for debate. I find this and Der Untergang(or "Downfall") to be exceptionally well-done. As was also the case with that one, this requires you to pay close attention. The pace comes about as close to being outright overpowering - for two and a half hours straight, mind you - as it can, without crossing the line into it. This does also somewhat expect you to be familiar with the overall occurrences, otherwise, you may be confused and have trouble keeping track and following it. This is rather intense. It is a quite strong piece. Featured is an immense amount of violence, which is often graphic. The attitude towards nudity and sexuality is very relaxed. This is disturbing. It is by no means for the faint of heart, and mainstream audiences, if they give this a chance, should not expect it to be "enjoyable", in the traditional sense. It is not "funny". It is powerful. The cinematography and editing are excellent. The acting performances are beyond reproach. I don't know all the facts, but I understand that this isn't completely historically accurate, though it seems to come fairly close. The production values are incredible. I recommend this to anyone interested in an authentic drama based on the Rote Armee Fraktion. 8/10

Entertaining but Somewhat Empty

[K2nsl3r · 7/10 · 29 September 2008]

This film captures much of the historical tensions that existed in 60s-70s Germany (and world at large) by focusing on one of its most visible "phenomena", the so-called Baader-Meinhof Gang, which was also called, even beyond the reign of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the Rote Armee Fraktion or RAF. The struggle between left-wing terrorists and the established political and state apparatus, mediated through the perception of the masses via mutual propaganda, makes for an interesting story and an important saga in Europe's confrontation with the limits of liberal democracy, and of the populace's flirtation with bloody acts of terror.

This film tells the story in its crude general details, in the course of about 2½ hours. It focuses largely on three figures: Andreas Baader (portrayed as a rash control freak), Ulrike Meinhof (shown first as a timid reported and later a ruthless organizer of violence) and Gudrun Ensslin (the lover of Baader and a determined fanatic). Many minor characters pop in and out, and at least 4 or 5 countries are visited in the course of the group's exile and international reach. Many shots are fired, many bombs exploded, many victims ("guilty" and "innocent") assassinated, and many plans hatched and botched.

Overall, the film does a pretty good job at carrying the story forward at a rapid pace. At no point did I lose touch of the essentials of what's going on. I found the movie to be eminently easy to follow and a pleasure to watch. The best part of the movie is the first half, or maybe first two-thirds, during which time the focus in on the sympathetic figureheads (Baader, Meinhof, Ensslin). By the time they are in prison, the story is driven (as it was in real life) by a new generation of fighters, who are comparably less interesting and whose motivations remain a mystery. Not only that, but I thought that the ending of the movie was highly unsatisfactory. The last half an hour of the film is a real mess. It's not catastrophic, but it's still a huge step-down from the well-paced storytelling of the rest of the movie.

Now, the movie can easily be faulted for being a superficial exercise in crowd pleasing. It focuses only on the barest of motivational factors. It doesn't care for depth or subtlety. People are portrayed as one-dimensional and events flash by so fast that we don't have time to reflect on what we see. Action is favored over thought (but maybe this aptly represents RAF's philosophy?): there are chase scenes, gun fights, bombings, sieges and a few orgies. Overall, the movie is a loud exercise in simplistic historical narrative. For example, we get the obligatory news reels of Nixon, MLK, the War in Vietnam and the student riots of '68... There's nothing new to be seen or heard here. Not even the actions of the Baader-Meinhof Gruppe itself are explicated beyond what everybody who has read anything about the group already knows.

Still, there are many things that speak on behalf of the movie. For one, all the actors do a very fine job indeed. From Bruno Ganz as the head of the police hunt to all the youthful and anarchic terrorists, the cast carries the film from beginning to end. Martina Gedeck as Ulrike Meinhof does an excellent job, and her character has also been given the most depth and complexity of all the RAF members. There are a few caricatures, but mostly the failures of character development in the movie have to do with the lack of time given to each character on screen. As others have pointed out, the sheer massiveness of the scale of events and the extensiveness of the timeline means that the movie cannot delve into any particular aspect of the story at any length. The actors do a fine job, however, and all the sets look authentic: the mass rallies organized by Rudi Dutschke and the violent demonstrations between the students and the cops (all very early in the film) are very effective in depicting the mood and reality of the era. The beating of the students is a harrowing image that leaves nothing for imagination.

Speaking of the conflict between authority and rebellion, I think that the true strength of this film is precisely in its non-ideological and non-preachy tone. It offers a certain amount of reciprocal faulting between the pro- and anti-Baader-Meinhofians, and it certainly condemns the anti-civilian actions of the group, but it gives Bruno Ganz a few definite lines that summarize the essence of the conflict - something to the effect that "even while condemning, you have to understand the real causes of terrorism". This sentiment, while hardly new or deep, is an important one in a movie that otherwise could have been turned either into a Bonnie and Clyde romance or an exercise in retrospective character assassination. And make no mistake, all these people are portrayed in less than flattering light. Still, some amount of humanity is allowed to shine through, and this is what makes the movie SLIGHTLY more than just another empty gesture in the perpetuation of a historical mythos.

It is an entertaining, and very well made movie which doesn't offer much depth but, in its simplicity and straightforwardness, offers material in its pure density and lets the audience make up its own mind... Too bad that it ends so suddenly and unsatisfactorily as it does. That's a shame, because the movie could have been great. Now it's only entertaining.

Better than most critics want to admit

[ChrisWasser · 9/10 · 30 September 2008]

I agree with the other comments on the following points: the film does indeed concentrate on the culprits and their actions in a documentary way (as opposed to an interpretation of the RAF's ideas and motivations from a clear-cut political standpoint). Although the victims DO appear they are not characterized more closely; the only representative of the state is Horst Herold (head of the BKA), politicians do not show up at all, the media appear only in the shape of Springer, konkret and Spiegel and even the lawyers (Haag, Croissant, Schily, Ströbele, etc.) are merged into only one (fictitious?) character. I for one do agree with this approach and if you are prepared for it you probably can live with it too. In any case, despite all the chases, shootouts and explosions it hasn't become a mere action-film.

What's more problematic is that the film follows the book by Stefan Aust VERY closely. Therefore the dramaturgy is more similar to "real life" than to a classical feature film (e.g. there are many changes in pace, several climaxes are distributed over the course of the film and a proper arc of suspense is somewhat missing). "Fortunately" real life offered a culmination of events with the Schleyer kidnapping in the "German Autumn" 1977, so that the film ends in a reasonably satisfying way. Nevertheless the end credits come a little abruptly.

The second problem is that the film tries to show virtually ALL events from the book (only some minor incidents like the Mahler detention, Peter Urbach, the burglaries in registration offices in order to steal blank passports or the visit of Jean-Paul Sartre in Stammheim are missing) so that it needs to squeeze 10 years of history into 140 minutes. The result is a film with breakneck speed at some points. The better scenes (e.g. the training camp in Jordan or the lawsuit in Stammheim) are obviously those where the film catches breath, calms down and takes its time for the actors to shine.

The quality of the acting ranges from good to fantastic (with very few exceptions like Alexandra Maria Lara, who is nothing more than wide-eyed again and who thankfully doesn't even have dialogue). Especially Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek are sensational. It is THEIR film and the conflicts in Stammheim which led to Meinhof's suicide are acted Oscar-worthy. But Michael Gwisdek (Ensslin's father), Jan Josef Liefers (Peter Homann), Sebastian Blomberg (Rudi Dutschke), Nadja Uhl (Brigitte Mohnhaupt) and Hannah Herzsprung (Susanne Albrecht) are also very good.

The production values are excellent too. A lot of locations, a great deal of main and supporting roles, hundreds of extras, good special effects (mainly explosions) and a set design and costume design which creates a very coherent 70's atmosphere: you can see that the film cost a lot of money. Every cent is on the screen.

I didn't like the choice of music that much. Deep Purple's "Child in Time" is always great to hear, but the rest (Janis Joplin, The Who, Bob Dylan) is just too mainstreamy and unimaginative for my taste (but probably also very expensive). Why not use MC5, Ton Steine Scherben or Ennio Morricone's "Vamos a matar, companeros"?

Now I'm looking forward to the reactions and reviews from other countries, who probably don't know this part of German history very well. In the US I expect the criticism that there are too many naked people, too many swear words and even more cigarettes (every one in BMK smokes everywhere and at all times), in order to distract from the politics of the film ;-) "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex" isn't the masterpiece on the history of the first generation of the RAF that I had hoped for in my comments on "Todesspiel", but altogether it is a very suspenseful, fascinating, densely narrated and well acted film. Hopefully it will not be the last word on the subject, but it succeeds in giving the audience the basic RAF knowledge on which future (less neutral, more opinionated) movies can build their stories.

Necessary

[Liedzeit · 8/10 · 4 October 2008]

First of all this is a very important film. Just like the other "Big" film by Eichinger "Der Untergang" it confronts the German audience (and the world should it care) with some aspect of German history that people should know about. In this case the "myth" of the RAF. To everyone who lived through the seventies in Germany it is clear that the influence of the RAF on Germany can hardly be exaggerated. I was a kid but my impression at the time was that both sides were wrong. There was a constant fear of terror coming from the terrorists but also from the state. (People did not get jobs if it was suspected they were "left".) So to make a blockbuster film, even if it does not really explain the motives of the main characters involved, at least gives us some facts. Not everyone is prepared to watch documentaries or read the book by Aust, but everyone should have some thoughts or maybe discussions on the subject.

Okay, but does it succeed as a film? Not entirely. The actors as everyone agrees were excellent, the cinematography as well. You do think you are in the seventies. That in itself is amazing. The action scenes are done splendidly, especially at the beginning the riots during the visit of the Persian Shah which culminated in the shooting of a student which in turn was, at least to some extent, the origin of the rise of terror. Of course the film is episodic and there are too many characters in it, most of them are not introduced in any way and ten years of complex history cannot be told in an altogether satisfying way. But the film succeeds in giving us a sense of what was going on. The producer, Bernd Eichinger has been accused of vanity. Which is a funny thing. Of course, he is vain. He has the duty to be vain as long as he also feels a responsibility to make movies that try to tell something. And the challenge, he feels, is to say it to as many people as possible.

What you see is what you get (nothing more)

[alexandermangoldt · 7/10 · 11 October 2008]

I watched the movie at a teacher's screening in Wuppertal on a Sunday morning. I was quite impressed with the accurate and detailed portrayal of the RAF and the events of the so called 'German fall' (Deutscher Herbst). I myself knew of many of the events beforehand and thanks to documentaries such as Veiel's Black Box BRD and Breloer's Todesspiel I was able to compare. For the two and some hours that the movie lasted I was on the edge of my seat. None of the scenes were boring, everything was well paced (at times maybe a little too fast paced) and I felt like I was being taken back to the important past of my native country. However, at the end I felt a little empty. The documentaries I just mentioned focused on only one story, but these documentaries were better because they gave us an in-depth analysis of the opposing forces (the bourgeoisie, the elite and the socialist rebels).

The portrayal of Meinhof and Baader seems accurate, too, but often I wondered if Baader really was the small-time crook he's made out to be in the movie. Except for Meinhof and Ensslin nobody seems to have some really deep thoughts about what was (is) wrong with our society. Mohnhaupt played by Nadja Uhl isn't explained at all, she's just there all of a sudden and we just go along thinking that she is in it for the same reasons as everybody else (Which are???).That way the movie seemed a little biased, as if trying to tell us that the RAF was mainly criminal and not so much political. Although I believe that a lot of their motives were right, even though they didn't justify any of the actions.

Bruno Ganz as Herold is allowed to play his character in a way that everyone thinks of the German government at the time as a dignified and moderate administration although I don't believe that to be true (after all, Herold said that he can only cure the symptoms of the RAF disease but not the disease itself, yet he didn't do anything to make the German people understand that the RAF is not altogether wrong when it accuses the German people of laziness, cowardice and complacency).

Now, leaving the movie, I figured that there was nothing much left to talk about. The teacher material that we received was pretty useless, because it doesn't offer any interesting topics for discussion. I for one think it would be interesting to discuss the present situation (bureaucracy, war in Iraq, terrorism) with the situation of Germany in the 70's. We are still dealing with many of the problems that caused the insurgency and civil disobedience back then, yet today we don't do anything at all. We are dissatisfied with the Bush administration, we oppose the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we suffer from a financial crisis mainly caused by the deregulated free market economy (capitalism) and we watch the divide between the rich and the poor getting bigger and bigger.

However, the youth of today doesn't protest. Why not? Maybe because we taught them well that in the end it's everyone for themselves and that it's best to be obedient, docile and commonorgarden if you want at least a little security in your life. One of the stronger scenes was the one where Ensslin accuses Meinhof of jerking off on her socialist theories instead of actually doing something. That's where you can see how Meinhof was influenced by the RAF. Finally she met some people who were willing to take action instead of just talking and philosophizing about a better world. This scene lends itself well to the follow-up scene in which Meinhof helps Baader to escape from prison. The jump from the window sill is a the same time a jump towards extremism.

Well, all in all, I think it's a good film to get people interested in Germany's past but it can only be the beginning of a more subtle analysis of what the RAF stood for and what it was trying to do.

A cautionary tale

[Michael Fargo · 10/10 · 5 September 2009]

It's not insignificant that this story reaches us at this time. Reactionary movements are all around us, some linked to the events (and there are many events depicted here) in the film.

This is the opposite of Oliver Hirschbiegel's static, embalmed "Downfall," the recreation of Hitler's last days. Uli Edel takes Stefan Aust's book and infuses it with kinetic energy. It's one of the best uses of montage in recent cinema and the sound design fits in squarely with the sophisticated visuals and elaborate re-staging of the crimes of the Baader-Meinhoff gang, aka, The Red Army Faction.

I saw this film just after watching Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock," a very different evocation of a turbulent era. Equally successful here is the recreation of a revolutionary time where everyone seemed to be fighting against something and to be fair, there was a lot to argue rightly about changing. It all came down to the methods one used, and using the guilt of post Nazi Germany, the Baader-Meinhoff gang became delusional and grandiose in their "methods" of social change. "Urban guerrilla" was the fashionable name at the time, today we call it terrorism.

The film doesn't bother to weigh whether anything legitimate was anyone's goal. It opens with a stunning set piece at a demonstration against the Shah of Iran and a riot that pits Right Wing elements against Leftists. As the violence escalates, there are several tracking shots ahead of charging mounted police on horseback that is so electrifying, I sat there wondering, "Can this film top that opening?" Well, it does.

It holds the interest of the audience through a very complex series of robberies, bombings and kidnappings. I was reminded of "The French Connection" in the use of sheer excitement to keep an audience engaged in a very elaborate political movement that terrorized Europe for nearly a decade (at least the cast of characters depicted in this film; activities of the group are still—arguably—alive).

Some have argued that the focus of the film on the crimes of the group glorify them, but no more than, say, the Barrow gang was elevated in Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde." We're given Baader and Meinhof's dialectic, but we're clearly watching psychotic/psychopathic people; and no one can deny they had a following.

It's a long film, but I think it's very efficient in the story it tells. Over two and a half hours, I can't think of any scene or crime that should have been cut. As well, the film is full of dialog and the English titles require you to miss a great deal of what's visually on the screen. I plan to see it twice as a result.

Huge rallies and set pieces are recreated. The only documentary footage that I recognized was from the Munich Olympics. Sobering in its account, there are many lessons we still need to learn from these events. I was reminded of one of Leonard Cohen's lyrics: "I've seen the future and, brother, it is murder." Let's hope these methods are in the past and not our future. We need to ensure that.

Mixed emotions

[CKDexter-4 · 7/10 · 29 September 2008]

The movie of Edel and Eichinger is fine when it comes to sets and costumes. It seems to catch the mood of the late Sixties and Seventies very well. Also the lead actors Bleibtreu, Wokalek and Gedeck have delivered outstanding performances. Too bad, that they don't get a chance to really explore their characters: Too much else is going on in this movie, that completely loses its focus during the last hour. The closer we get to the end, the more it resembles a documentary with a few scenes of play cut in now and then.

The viewer is presented with a lot of facts - and violence - but the movie fails in decoding the often cited "myth" of the RAF. For example, I've always wondered, whether Baader was just a criminal or really politically motivated. Well, in the first half of the movie, Baader is portrayed as an outlaw, who enjoys provocation and fast cars. Later he delivers sophisticated political statements. A good movie should at least try to explain this development. DER BAADER MEINHOF KOMPLEX doesn't.

Another interesting German movie

[perica-43151 · 8/10 · 20 July 2018]

Germans have a quality wave of movies that reached wold audience in the early 21st century, after the Run Lola Run hit. This movie is perhaps not the best of the best, but is interesting, original and gives a story of one turbulent era with great detail and precision.

Action movie, leaves open many questions

[rudymovie · 30 November 2008]

Being aged, knowing most about the R.A.F story from the news when it happened (1970s) including the events in 1968 (Berlin, Prague , Mexico , U.S.A.) I am much more disappointed in this " big production' on a major theme in post war German (European) history, than most other critics up till now. If you know little or nothing about the subject, like many younger people, this may seem a " cool movie". Just as an action pic, you're right. However, what I miss, is the ideological context in which all this was happening. There is some mention of sectarian leftist groups, we see major mass protests of university students, etc. And the starting scenes in Berlin (visit of Sjah) are the main " background" to the " movement". (by the way, how many under 30 people knew about the Sjah of Persia, anyway? I even remember first spouse Soraya from the early 60's...). What I miss, is , an explanation of what and how on the mass student meetings, they are just shown. Also missing are the deeper context of postwar BRD (Germany) not having come to terms with the Nazi past, especially in the situation of many former NSDAP - symp's having high places in society, government, industry, etc. As I remember, that was one of the main frustrations in leftist circles ( and not only there...). Etcetera. In this respect, seeing the first gen. members of R.A.F. speeding to an unexplained action in BMW's on the " autobahn" as if they were fun-cruising L.A. in a Tarantino muscle-car flic while having My Generation by the Who on the stereo this all is quite unbelievable for people informed about that era. I don't believe these guys were jet-set-emulators. Jet-set was capitalist and thus their opposite social stratum. Which they fought , with all fatal results. And, why the story ending with the death of the first four, how shocking it may be? This whole episode is too much for one movie. As a Dutch proverb says: " they took too much hay on their fork". (meaning the makers of B.M. Komplex). genomen".

The Seventies at their most violent

[Chris Knipp · 7/10 · 15 September 2009]

There are plenty of previous movies about this most famous of European terrorist groups of the 1970's. J. Hoberman of The Village Voice mentions notable ones by Fassbinder, Rainer, Hauff, and Schlöndorff, points to Gerhard Richter's important 15-painting installation, and calls this presentation "by contrast...an extended footnote." If a footnote, it's extended indeed: it runs two and a half hours, and it may be one of the most elaborate series of recreations of violent political action ever put on film. Made from Der Spiegel editor Stefan Aust's book-length study, it's a very comprehensive account and and this very strength is also a flaw: because it's such a detailed survey, the film therefore also lacks clarifying focus, or depth in portraying any particular individuals or events. Not having seen any of these predecessors except part of the Richter paintings series, I use as my comparison Bellocchio's 'Good Morning, Night'/'Buongiorno, notte.' A rather surprising approach to filming the Aldo Moro kidnapping, it takes us long and deep into the kidnappers' claustrophobic world and has a haunting mood, a sense of what it's like to be trapped by suicidal commitments. It also shows better than this film how a single grand terrorist exploit could hold a whole nation in its feverish grip.

No doubt that the actors playing journalist-convert Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck), the lawless hipster revolutionary Andreas Baader (Moritz Beibtreu) and Baader's paramour Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) have the right stuff to convey the wild conviction and psychoses of the time. These three, plus the police chief played by Bruno Ganz and a young Turk played by Vinzenz Kiefer, are the only characters who emerge vividly as personalities. Gudrun's love for Andreas is simply but deftly conveyed through all the wreckage and violence by the way she calls him "baby." Meinhof is a sympathizer whose motherhood and respectability hold her back, till she is the decoy and manipulator in an operation to spring Baader from prison, whereupon she jumps out the window with the others and becomes and outlaw. Later (perhaps because lacking full commitment?) she gradually loses her sanity during a long period when the principals are all held in solitary confinement.

Lots of stringy hair, bad clothing styles, too much lipstick and eyeliner and perpetual cigarettes add to the period flavor. One of the principals even lights up during an intense shootout with police. Ganz's wily, cool-headed police chief seems to have ideas Americans of the last decade are incapable of: he says more than once that terrorism won't end till the situations that lead to it are removed. Vietnam, the Palestinians, and a series of other injustices are presented as context, not to mention such Sixties American violence as the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and M.L. King. This is a film rich in political reference -- but without much clarification of the group's political motives or their relation to strategy. The original group begins by blowing up a department store, and robs three banks in a ten-minute period. Robberies, bombings, and kidnappings are their M.O., and decisions often just seem to flow out of firecracker Andrea Baader's macho screaming fits. When in doubt, he usually throws a chair. It's not entirely clear how devilish derring-do morphed into leadership. But what is clear is that the opposition is former Nazis or their sympathizers, and the new terrorists, committed to preventing fascism from ever returning to Germany, are the offspring of parents who were anti-Nazi all along. The group calls itself RAF, the Red Army Faction, and Chairman Mao is a guru, even if his dicta are only rarely cited.

The opening scene of the film is a jaw-droppingly complex and violent production number: a large street demonstration in which fascist supporters of the Shah of Iran face leftists. The Shah supporters begin a bloody attack on the leftists using the wood poles that held their posters, and the police join in, bashing leftists; one gets shot. Tumult and excitement continue unabated thenceforth; in the first half, there are few pauses for breath. A notable one comes when Gudrun invites a young rebel just escaped from juvie, Peter-Jürgen Boock (Vinzenz Kiefer) to strip and join her in the bath, and Baader comes in and isn't bothered. Peter-Jürgen will become a leader of the second or third generation Baader Meinhof, who arranges Arab collaboration in the Lufthansa plane hijacking to gain the leaders' release from prison, which Baader disavows because it jeopardizes innocent passengers. (This is not the first Baader Meinhof contact with Palestinian fighters; Baader's earlier ones wind up not being very friendly.) We see how it transpires that the German police declare terrorism in Germany to have been safely eliminated, only to be proved very wrong when the 1972 Munich Olympics lead to the slaughter of the Israeli team.

One question is if you can root out terrorism. Another is whether terrorism accomplishes any positive goal. The film doesn't allow us much time to think about any of this. What it does do, and does with obvious accomplishment and at considerable expense, is provide vivid images of this violent segment of the period. And it lets viewers judge for themselves, neither moralizing nor sympathizing.

Little more than a vanity project for Bernd Eichinger

[lual · 6/10 · 25 September 2008]

Once every few years, Bernd Eichinger feels the need to prove to everybody that he has the biggest dick in the German film industry. In order to do this, he refrains from making cheap stupid international movies like "Resident Evil" and dumb German comedies and makes a big movie that he calls important. After "Der Untergang" and "Das Parfum" we now get "Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex".

One really wonders who this movie was made for. People who don't know anything about the RAF will not understand most of what is going on. People who know some stuff about this will only find the things that they already know and experts on the topic will be horrified about the simplifications and elisions.

The movie looks great, as it should be expected. It really looks like it is from the era. All technical aspects are wonderful, the cinematography, the action, sound, effects. And the actors do an incredible job. Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek stand out in this universally good cast as Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin.

Also, to be fair, it has to be said, that the beginning of the movie is really gripping and well done. The viewer gets to understand a lot about the feeling of the time and the intentions of the protagonists are well-explained.

But the whole thing goes downhill after a while. By the time Ulrike Meinhof joins the group and Andreas Baader breaks out of prison, we lose focus. Suddenly there are new members in almost every scene and none of them gets introduced properly (with the exception of Peter-Jürgen Boock). Certainly, not every character needs a back story, but it would have been essential to tell the audience at least how these recruits got to join the group in general.

By the time that Meinhof, Baader and Ensslin are imprisoned, we really don't care about the RAF any more. And this is mainly because we have no idea who these "2nd generation" people are. Even people who know about the RAF will wonder who this or that guy in each scene is supposed to be because only few of them are even mentioned by name. The assassinations of von Mirbach, Buback and Ponto are just checked off a list to get the story to completion. And the whole Schleyer-kidnapping as well as the attack on the "Landshut" which are supposed to serve as the climax of the movie have terrible timing and leave out so much important information.

But also the handling of characters of the "1st generation" is done poorly in parts. Raspe is basically absent from the movie until he gets taken in by the police, same with Meins, whose only purpose in the movie it is to get captured, force-fed and then die. Only these three scenes. Nothing more is seen of him! Neither Eichinger nor Edel really cared to explain or teach anything. The whole thing was just planned as a big production to show off 2/3 of the more well-known actors working in Germany in one movie. Even the guy who attempts to assassinate Rudi Dutschke gets played by a well known actor (Tom Schilling). What this movie would have needed is the kind of epilogue that Eichinger put at the end of "der Untergang" to show what happened to some characters and also to even explain who these characters were supposed to be.

So, we only have one more chance to find out. Since the movie is filled with well-known actors, reading the credits might help. No chance here. Except for the main characters no character name is mentioned in the credits, only the actors who showed up. To me, this is the ultimate proof that Eichinger didn't care about the characters at all, all he cared about was the actors he could squish into this movie.

There are other things that others will criticize, for example the way the victims are turned just into cardboard figures with no purpose other than getting assassinated, or the fact that the German government, which was very involved especially in the final act, is not present at all. I personally do not mind these things too much, because I understand that this is not the story the makers wanted to tell.

I only criticize the movie for what it is. A nice-looking, but unfortunately very hollow and confusing piece of work. Too bad. It was a great chance that was missed here.

A surprisingly awful movie

[Kaleidoscope · 1/10 · 27 June 2010]

I was excited for this film. Really was. The production team had great credentials, it'd been overwhelmingly well-reviewed and, of course, it got the Oscar nomination. Which was why I was hugely surprised and disappointed by just how terrible it was.

First, there's the issue of politics. The film hugely oversimplified the very complex political dynamics at work in the Baader-Meinhof years. Neither the positions of Meinhof and other RAF ideologues nor the German government are given proper examinations, in stark contrast to the nuance of Eichinger's Der Untergang. The one scene that touches on the complexity the film needed is where Bruno Ganz's character discusses the motivations of terrorists--and this scene was completely out of place, inserted seemingly to make it obvious why the film was still relevant today. If the rest of the film had been done well, the topics covered would have been played out on screen, obviating the need for heavy-handed lecturing.

Perhaps this is a problem of the medium--we don't have time for an in- depth political discussion in what is basically supposed to be a thriller, and screen time is better spent on character development. Unfortunately, the film fails completely in that department as well. Part of the problem is the filmmakers' desire to cover the entire breadth of the Baader-Meinhof era. Character relationships change between scenes, and their motivations are generally unexplored. Meinhof's transformation from middle-class leftist intellectual to urban guerrilla is completely unconsidered--it just happens. And the changing relationships between the group's leaders are barely touched. The dramatic shifts that occur while they're in prison and standing trial are hardly investigated at all, and those character dynamics seemed like they were the dramatic heart of the story.

Storytelling is likewise negatively effected by the film's scope. I'm a modern German historian, and while the RAF isn't my focus, I'm pretty familiar with the basics, and I was having trouble following the story because of the film's choppy editing. It seemed like a collection of scenes rather than a coherent story. And speaking of editing, the (thankfully few) action scenes are edited in such haphazard fashion that it's difficult to tell what is happening (especially Baader's escape from police custody).

As my review indicates, most of The Baader-Meinhof Complex's problems were basic film-making ones. Yes, the politics were oversimplified, but that happens in movies, and the film did a good enough job with them that politics wouldn't have sunk it alone. Where it really fails is in its characters. If you want to know more about the RAF, you're much better off picking up a book--the recently released collection of Meinhof's writings is a good place to start, as is the book on which this film is ostensibly based.

Here's hoping that this film's success will inspire a more thoughtful, better made consideration of this hugely important epoch in German history.

An enlightening, brilliantly acted and thoroughly absorbing film .

[geoffgee · 8/10 · 20 November 2008]

Although being somewhat more than moderately interested in politics, I knew very little about the original activities on which this film is based. Having seen the film, I now feel vastly more knowledgeable on how world events in the late sixties and early seventies led from the emergence to the demise of this particular left wing faction. My attention was fully engaged throughout the film. I thought the screenplay brilliantly portrayed the way the mindset of the RAF developed as they became more and more convinced they were living in a police state. Acting and direction were superb throughout. In spite of the violence and repression being depicted, I was reassured by the fact that such thought provoking films can and are being made for today's cinema audiences. After seeing Die Welle (I think it was three times) earlier this year I am now very enthusiastic about German cinema and shall certainly be hoping to see Der Baader Meinhof Komplex at least once more on the big screen this year. A masterpiece of political film making. Highly recommended.

Most expensive German movie ever; it shows.

[TKoote · 8/10 · 23 November 2008]

I went to see this movie without any knowledge of the RAF. I wasen't even born when the RAF was active. Still I could follow the story of the movie because, even though some figures are vague and get no introduction, the most important story lines are explained.

The movie follows the beginning, top and ending of the first RAF-members; Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in particular. The rest of the group doesen't get the big introduction Ulrike got but with so many interesting characters the film would get even longer then its 2.5 hours.

That is inmediatly the biggest problem with the film; it's length. Because of the variety of events and characters, Der Baader-Meinhof complex never gets boring, but at some point in the movie you start to get irritated by the new events. It would be more wisely if the director had chosen to make a sequel, sothat the second RAF-members get the attention they deserve.

So why 8 out of 10 stars? Simple, as an action-movie this is brilliant. The story is good and the movie doesen't tell more than it has to. The biggest achievement however is in my point of view the political statement. It doesen't make it. Der Baader-Meinhof complex tells the story of the RAF, but never approves the actions of the group, but also doesen't disapprove them. And that is a great achievement.

Recent German history reminds us that students once protested more than tuition fees.

[HuntinPeck80 · 7/10 · 27 February 2012]

From the pov of someone only familiar with the names Baader-Meinhof and not at all informed about the group's intentions or the political context in which they worked, I found this film both fascinating and perplexing. Close to 2.5 hrs but the surprise is it could have done with being longer, the relentless action and frenetic changes of place and activity (as if the characters had been teleported from one country to another) having a dislocating effect.

Some have claimed the film is shot in the manner of a documentary because of an apparent neutrality of tone, but I think a documentary would have been better structured and more informative. For a non-German there are many moments where the behaviour of the characters or official bodies is totally alien and hard to explicate. As a dramatisation it lacks a satisfying structure, the ending abrupt and no afterword on the group's legacy. I agree with another contributor that the use of mainstream pop is a bit unimaginative, unless the point is to present Baader & co. as disaffected kids who nonetheless have a pop cultural sensibility - indeed, one could interpet their actions as simply an ultraviolent but juvenile act of rebellion against patriarchy. The constant changes of scene, pop music, swearing and smoking, scenes of public nakedness: all this seems designed to capture the perceived young audience with a tiny attention span. Not wanting to risk sobriety the film chooses instead sensationalism, perhaps deliberately bypassing a truly serious-minded portrait of what must be a divisive episode in German history.

The Baader-Meinhof Complex did succeed in making me curious to know more about these people and I'll be looking for a suitable book or documentary. For those looking for entertainment, the film certainly delivers startling violence and heated emotions and the group's actions are left open to interpretation, even if one ultimately longs for stronger characterisation and more time to process what's happening.

guns and cigarettes

[moritzbonn-1 · 9/10 · 5 October 2008]

a few words in advance,

never could a movie dealing with the RAF reach a high average vote and lead to a general approval. It simply depends on the different emotions according to this topic. Don't forget that some 35 years ago there existed an unbelievable high support among young people for the terroristic organization whereas the majority looked with disgust at the murderers.

So watching this movie is simply not more than a check whether the director catches the already existing attitude towards this controversial topic. In my eyes, the optimal way to direct this movie would have to treat it like a partly documentary with many original television scenes connected with the presentation of the characters. What I was interested in was whether this movie is able to place the viewer inside the plot, whether one could feel the atmosphere of this extreme period of German history and whether the presented scenes are consistent with the documents one had seen in television reports before. The movie has definitely come up to my expectations. The characters are just brilliant. It is some of the best German work of acting I have ever seen, every single scenes is so consistent with the picture one has in mind. Almost nothing stays from the line of the real development. The only thing I criticize is the selection of scenes. Maybe, the killers are given to much space to call out their misplaced ideology but neither is their behavior justified nor is any sympathy given to them. There doesn't exist any scope for interpretation about who was right and who was wrong. Furthermore, a few more words could have been given to the victims of the RAF whose assassinations are presented very precisely.

All in all, it is a shocking but good movie.

Nice people can do nasty things.

[Philby-3 · 7/10 · 14 December 2008]

During the late 1960s and 1970s West Germany was plagued with an outbreak of "urban terrorism" by a group known as the Red Army Faction (the "RAF"). It also became known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, after two of its leading lights. The gang robbed banks, let off bombs and assassinated the odd official and businessman. Although associated with the left the RAF was more of an anarchist group originally provoked by police violence against demonstrators and the Vietnam War. It later degenerated into a gang of youthful criminals bent on revenge and on the release of some of its members from prison.

This film covers the history of the gang in fair detail and ends with the suicide of three of them in prison after the PFLP hi-jack of a Lufthansa aircraft in 1977 which was commissioned to have them released along with some Palestinian "freedom fighters" also languishing in German jails..

The interesting question the film raises is why well-brought up, educated young people with no obvious signs of psychosis from the middle classes got involved in this sort of mayhem. Ulrich Meinhof was an established journalist (albeit left wing) in her late 20s, married with children, yet she went off with the gang to rob banks after being involved in an attempt to free one of them from custody. Andreas Baader was more of a bad lad with a history of delinquency, but his original motivation was political rather than criminal. His boon companion Gudrun was also politically motivated, but was a good deal more ruthless than the others. In the early days, during the late 60s they had plenty of supporters, for their stance on Vietnam, and their hero Che Guevara had admirers around the world. The impression I get from the film is that group dynamics played a large part – people did evil things in a group that they would never consider doing on their own. The lovers of action overwhelmed the more thoughtful members such as Meinhof. Karl Marx wrote (and it is on his tombstone in Highgate cemetery) "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways – the point however is to change it." He probably didn't contemplate the middle class rising against itself – the revolution was to come from the workers.

Probably the most lasting damage the group did was to civil liberties. If you are a security supremo a group like this is manna for heaven. The most enigmatic character in the movie is the police chief played by Bruno Ganz (superbly) who keeps on telling his subordinates as they urge harsher measures that "we must address the problems this group is protesting about". Not that the West German government could do much about the war in Vietnam. But nothing is ever done except the implementation of more security in banks, airports, and public buildings, and more general harassment of anyone considered a threat. Somehow, Islamic extremist slipped past.

The veteran director Uli Edel ("The Lives of Others") handles this material with great skill, and most of it is edge of the seat stuff. However, things both slow down and become confusing towards the end, with most of the original gang in prison and with new characters introduced without any attempt to establish them. The actors playing Baader, Meinhof and Gudrun are all great, especially Martina Gedeck as Meinhof , who gives a very poignant portrayal of intellectual disintegration. I wasn't left with the impression that the filmmakers were out to glorify terrorism, rather the reverse.

This film dove-tales with "Mogadishu" a very good German TV film on the hi-jack which was shown on Austrian TV on November 30, just a few days before I saw this film in a cinema in Bolzano. The Lufthansa hi-jack is revealed as a curious piece of co-operation between two very different terrorist groups.

Totally surprised

[kneiss1 · 9/10 · 6 July 2010]

I am German, but usually I dislike German movies. So it was a big surprise for me how great this movie actually was. (After all the disappointing Hollywood movies, I will definitely look out for some more German movies.)

Life sometimes writes the best stories, but that doesn't mean that they are always told well. In this case the movie told the story perfectly. Of course not everything happened exactly as it was told, but the whole movie was very convincing. Psychologically the whole thing was very smart, the talks have been totally impressive and intellectual.

Even the action was great. Probably the best action ever shown in a German movie. Actors also have been on a very high level.

I personally would have liked a bit more information. But yea, the movie is already 2,5 hours long. I understand that they needed to leave out a lot of stuff. The movie did an amazing job of generating a great mix of entertainment, information and realism. - Something very unusual.

Criminal uses political label to cover crimes

[onewhoseesme · 6/10 · 6 November 2009]

Terrorism by the State, and terrorism by it's citizens are both despicable. Even worse is letting agents of a repressive foreign regime beat down another people in their own country in front of their own police. It's almost unimaginable, except that it happened. With that said, Andreas Baader was nothing' but a two bit outlaw accustomed to getting his own way by bullying everyone around him into submission.

There was nothing noble, altruistic, or virtuous in anything he said or did - just selfishness and oppression. He wasn't part of any revolution, it was nothing but a cover for as much criminal activity as he could possibly get away with before he was taken down. He was the only big fish in the very small pond of his followers, and he liked it that way.

Germany had been so badly beaten in the two biggest wars the world had ever seen, and was a very fragile democracy that was uncertain of it's own authority. Only in the modern age of media could a myth be born of such social detritus. The movie was well made and well acted, but the subject was not worth shining any light on - not even the light of a projector. He wasn't fighting tyranny, he was the tyrant . . .

fullgrownministry.com

could hardly be better

[mukava991 · 10/10 · 28 February 2010]

The Baader Meinhof Complex succeeds in bringing the social upheavals of the late 60s-early 70's to life for 21st century viewers in a realistic and urgent way.

The Baader Meinhof gang of West Germany was more or less equivalent to the Weather Underground in the USA – primarily students and intellectuals and their hangers-on who became frustrated by the failure of the mass protest movements of the late 60's to overthrow the world order. This frustration led them to engage in acts of terrorism, meant to provoke the state into increasing repression which in turn was supposed to provoke the population at large to mass revolt. (A similar movement existed in 19th century Russia when terrorist bombers, impatient with social quiescence, took to assassinating prominent officials, including Tsar Alexander II.) It didn't work and it only killed or injured a lot of innocent people, alienated millions more and ultimately reinforced the status quo.

This film not only re-stages the street battles, bank robberies and bombings in a manner up to the best Hollywood-action standards, but also reveals the individual, psychological complexities of the central gang members as portrayed by some very fine actors. The gang was a combination of downright sociopaths (personified by Baader) and morally outraged mainstream citizens (personified by Meinhof). It was a vast and messy enterprise, and director Uli Edel wisely allows the sheer chaos of it to explode across the screen in all of its confusion in order to replicate as much as possible the instability and the passion that characterized these events at the time, and to keep the story alive and flowing. In short, he crams as many aspects of the story as he can into two and a half hours, giving the audience an abundance of notions to explore during and after viewing.

Yet another impressive dramatized documentary

[harry_tk_yung · 29 April 2009]

It's been a parade of dramatized documentaries for me: Gomorrah, Il Divo, Che……and now, MBC. All of these are more than competent, but none not quite enough to bring home the Palme d'Or, the Oscar or the Golden Globe.

In a very early scene in BMC, which is about the German Red Army Faction (RAF) from 1967 to 1977, you are privy to an unflinching look at the violence of the establishment which makes you think, for a moment, that it roots for the course of the radical students and intellectuals. But the further you get into the movie, the more convinced you are that the movie makers do not have it anywhere in their agenda, not even as an afterthought, any intention of justifying the course of ANYBODY. Vengeance heaping upon vengeance, violence provoking more violence, it erodes you sympathy relentlessly until you don't really give a (you-fill-in-the-blank).

The movie revolves around the story of the three main characters. Journalist and mother Ulrike Meinhof is played by Martina Gedeck who, despite her work in recent Oscar-winning "The lives of others" (2006), is still remember best by many for her role is Martha Klein "Mostly Martha" (2001). The other woman in the trio is a rebellious daughter of a pastor, Gudrun Ensslin, played by Johanna Wokalek. Most erratic and eccentric is Ensslin's boyfriend Andreas Baader, played by Moritz Bleibtreu who has some exposure to the global audience with his appearance in Spielberg's "Munich" (2005) After their arrest, and throughout the long period of imprisonment and trial, more characters emerged, other radicals attempting to secure their release, through terrorism. While you may start deploring the sometimes senseless violence of Baader, it is this very character that tells you (or the German authorities, to be exact) that the second and third generations are much worse. And he is absolutely right as you soon find out.

In trying to stay on a steady course of being objective and factual, this movie suffers from becoming somewhat enigmatic, even elusive. As a skilfully crafted, action-packed and exciting cinematic adventure, it scores high. As an educational experience of recent history, it is also recommended.

An honest, and therefore supremely uninvolving, portrayal of 70's Eurotrash Terrorism

[ethan-orwin · 6/10 · 25 November 2008]

The creators of this well-made and well-acted film forgot a cardinal rule of narrative art--in order for the audience to remain engaged, some sort of sympathy with the characters has to be created from the outset. That is how so many films about terrible people (The Godfather, The Long Good Friday), or even psychopaths, can still leave us on the edge of our seats wondering about the fate of the protagonists.

Therein lies the problem for "The Baader-Meinhof Complex." It portrays the members of the most violent of the European Marxist terrorist groups of the seventies, the Rote Armee Fraktion, exactly as they were--as self-important, incredibly irritating middle-class scumbags, fighting ultimately for no cause beyond, well, being cool. As they prance around with their sunglasses and tight jeans, playing revolutionary to shock their former NSDAP-supporting mommies and daddies (a cause that doesn't quite merit killing legions of innocents), the viewer finds them as shallow, pathetic and despicable as they no doubt were. On this point, I'm shocked by some of the fools on this board, no doubt oh-so-hip do-nothing Marxists in their own college days, who agonize over whether these sociopaths were terrorists or freedom fighters. Please--East Germany tried socialism, and you had to wait in line for two hours to buy state-produced pickles. That's why the flight of people from West to East Berlin was, shall we say, none too common.

Anyway, since the characters make the viewer want to smack them in the face from day one (especially Gudrun Essling--kudos to that actress for the fist-clenchingly irritating portrayal), we stay engaged in the action-packed first half of the film, but lose interest completely once they're captured and the trial begins (the film is two and a half hours and far longer than it needs to be). Because at this point, the center of gravity of the film shifts toward the main characters' introspection regarding their own fates, and, well, I for one really didn't care. I just wanted them to shut up and kill themselves already.

Final note: The best scenes by far are those in the Palestinian training camp. The revolutionary culture clash that results as these utterly bourgeois, 60's counterculture wannabes attempt to train with real revolutionaries who, whatever one thinks of the Palestinian cause, are at least fighting for a real political goal that has some potential resonance, is handled perfectly and hilariously by the directors.

A history at best, a propaganda film at worst

[PenOutOfTime · 4/10 · 9 November 2009]

To grade a film like this, it is very helpful to try to classify what sort of film it is.

From a storytelling point of view, this film cannot hold up as a character study, because scenes that would really allow us to get into a character's head, are replaced by recreations of historical events.

By the standards of a drama, at least some of the characters are well drawn, but with a drama we would also expect to see opposing characters, at least if conflict is important to the story. There are plenty of nameless minions of the state in Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, but dramatic non-RAF characters are limited to say the least. We could say that the drama is limited to the people in the RAF, but if this is the case, then the interactions between RAF characters, while otherwise satisfactory for a different sort of film, are not adequate to justify this production.

If this film were a thriller, we would expect to see an interesting set of facts linked to one another in some revealing fashion, and we would expect to see some dramatic tension, an element that is generally lacking.

Ultimately, we are left with a historical film, and this raises the question of how well Der Baader Meinhof Komplex captures historical events. You cannot fault the film on thoroughness, as it seems to aim at detailing every significant action for a decade.

However, exactly what motivates the radicals/terrorists, and/or what exactly it is that they believe in, is either missing, or must be attributed to various character flaws (which are indeed exhaustively chronicled).

Such an assessment is of limited interest however, even to a right winger, or someone who wants to join GSG9, because the anti-terrorist and police forces are mostly nameless, and are commonly portrayed as somewhat brutal, lacking any particular agency or planning of their own. The one partial exception is an official who pops up regularly to emphasize that the various matters that the radicals are concerned about (for some reason, most of the mentioned issues involve other nations more than West Germany), are indeed important, in some ill defined fashion. One is tempted to believe that he is in the film only to demonstrate that the West German government was 'in touch' and suitably empathetic to 1970's leftist concerns.

Ultimately then, this film seems set on elaborating a particular historical judgment of 1970's Germany, and of Baader and Meinhof in particular. This critical assessment may be altogether correct, or not, as the case may be, but not even one side of the story is really told, never mind both.

The storytelling value of this historical judgment is rather limited, and the resulting film is fairly boring, albeit stripped of serious intellectual content by flash-powder and gory special effects. The film seems to be aimed at leftists, and aimed at deflating any romantic notions about the RAF. Although I suppose non-leftists might take comfort in this unflattering portrayal, the film is otherwise of little entertainment value, and rather annoyingly, its educational value is impeded by not only a lack of motive, but also a lack of clarity regarding the identity of the characters.