Rating: 
Summary: Confused tale of anarchists--tale of confused anarchists
Review: Germany has really produced some great films in the last few years, so I eagerly watched "What To Do In Case Of Fire." It's the story of a group of 6 anarchists who were very active in Germany during the 80s, but then went their separate ways. The first part of the film contains a lot of "footage" of the group facing German riot police, and we saw a lot of leather-clad youths throwing things--including big, creamy cakes. Unfortunately, a bomb the group made and placed 12 years before explodes, and suddenly everyone is interested in digging up the old anarchist group responsible. This rather spoils things for the six former anarchists--two are living as squatters in an abandoned building, one is a single mother, the other female member is about to get married to someone who knows nothing of her past, one of the males is a lawyer (now highly conventional), and the other male is a very successful advertising executive. The police raid the squat occupied by two members of the group and tapes revealing their 80s anarchy are confiscated, so the group reforms to get the tapes back. This is really a rather tired old tale--the old friends who reunite--the ones that "sold out"--and the ones who didn't. In this case, it's the same old story line jazzed up with Euro[stuff]. Apart from the hackneyed plot, the story had several holes in it, and I found myself trying to puzzle through the missing links. However, I think by far the most offensive thing about this film is the idea that these were just basically harmless people rebelling against "the system" and having lots of good clean fun doing it.
Rating: 
Summary: what to do in case of old age
Review: I loved it. As a 60's radical who went yuppie I thought it caught the spirit of revolution and the reality of selling out. and these were 80's radicals dealing with this in the 90's, I was amazed at how it hit the nails on the head. fast paced non stop entertainment. On the other hand, I insisted on showing it to my wife the next night and watched it again- she has seen a lot more movies than me and is a graduate in english literature and criticism and thought it an unrelieved piece of crap that said nothing to her. She did not find a minute of it believable nor a single character plausible. Clearly she never chained herself to a building! We have never disagreed about anything so fundamentally. I am glad it was not a very significant issue....
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling Taste of German Culture
Review: I thought this movie was great, contrary to the other review. I thought the plot was well planned out and as for missing links, I thought the exact opposite. I think they connected everyone's lives from the past to the present perfectly. The scene with the test run and the music played was fantastic.
Rating: 
Summary: What You Didn't Know, Didn't Hurt You--Until....
Review: It is the mid-1980s, and Berlin, Germany, is in chaos. You're an anarchist. Or, at least you think you are, and the hormones of your early 20s count for a great deal. Up against the "Imperialisten Schweine" (Imperialist Pigs) in the form of Police with riot gear...throw a few cakes, a little urine from above...what's the harm, really? Do a little squatting in an abandoned building? All in good fun. Columbia Tri-Star makes it to Germany...and this is a funny, heartwarming film. After all, friends just can't stop being friends, even if a pressure-cooker encased bomb does go off a little late--like, twelve years late. A little harm to a government bureaurat from Bonn, as Berlin prepares to take its rightful place as the Capitol of Germany again. No big deal, really. This isn't the Baader-Meinhoff gang. Their more fun, and probably much more attractive. So it goes in the movies, na und?
It just so happens they left behind a little incriminating evidence, including a film on how to make a bomb from common materials...and that film ends up in the police barracks at Templehof, in a building heralding from the time of the Third Reich. This film has a great deal of humanity, although you have to look for it beneath the glitzy, stereotyped images. It is about friendship, betrayal, the biological imperatives, lost youth, money over love, and much more. Thankfully, there's a bit of suspense, and no one is really hurt. Filmed in Berlin it was! It is becoming a great city, again.
The soundtrack is super!!! Jan Pliwa's music unfortunately is in German, so many will miss the ironies there, but much of the music is also in English, and a surprising number of Germans still learn English passionately, and these days, they learn American, not the Queen's English once taught in the Gymnasium (German High School for the professionally bound youth). The film was released for Region 0 with subtitles, rather than dubbed. I generally think this is better for such films, and it definitely is here. The translations are at times a bit weak, but don't detract from the humanistic content. It is hard to forget Machnowstraße SO 36, even if they did use a differnt building. The new owner, hot to get an invalid who lost his legs in the street wars of the 1980s, is well cast. Klaus Löwitsch, as the aging police detective who was on the trail of the Anarchists back in that time, who is assigned and then taken off the case...has the last laugh. His empathy with this dispersed gang--all but two have become upper-middle class citizens, is palpable and genuine. The "new" German police seem quite concerned with what will appear on the "Abendschau" or Evening News--quite refreshing. Highly recommended. And the soundtrack, titled "Was tun, wenn's brennt" is also superlative.
Rating:
Summary: What You Didn't Know, Didn't Hurt You--Until....
Review: It is the mid-1980s, and Berlin, Germany, is in chaos. You're an anarchist. Or, at least you think you are, and the hormones of your early 20s count for a great deal. Up against the "Imperialisten Schweine" (Imperialist Pigs) in the form of Police with riot gear...throw a few cakes, a little urine from above...what's the harm, really? Do a little squatting in an abandoned building? All in good fun. Columbia Tri-Star makes it to Germany...and this is a funny, heartwarming film. After all, friends just can't stop being friends, even if a pressure-cooker encased bomb does go off a little late--like, twelve years late. A little harm to a government bureaurat from Bonn, as Berlin prepares to take its rightful place as the Capitol of Germany again. No big deal, really. This isn't the Baader-Meinhoff gang. Their more fun, and probably much more attractive. So it goes in the movies, na und?
It just so happens they left behind a little incriminating evidence, including a film on how to make a bomb from common materials...and that film ends up in the police barracks at Templehof, in a building heralding from the time of the Third Reich. This film has a great deal of humanity, although you have to look for it beneath the glitzy, stereotyped images. It is about friendship, betrayal, the biological imperatives, lost youth, money over love, and much more. Thankfully, there's a bit of suspense, and no one is really hurt. Filmed in Berlin it was! It is becoming a great city, again.
The soundtrack is super!!! Jan Pliwa's music unfortunately is in German, so many will miss the ironies there, but much of the music is also in English, and a surprising number of Germans still learn English passionately, and these days, they learn American, not the Queen's English once taught in the Gymnasium (German High School for the professionally bound youth). The film was released for Region 0 with subtitles, rather than dubbed. I generally think this is better for such films, and it definitely is here. The translations are at times a bit weak, but don't detract from the humanistic content. It is hard to forget Machnowstraße SO 36, even if they did use a differnt building. The new owner, hot to get an invalid who lost his legs in the street wars of the 1980s, is well cast. Klaus Löwitsch, as the aging police detective who was on the trail of the Anarchists back in that time, who is assigned and then taken off the case...has the last laugh. His empathy with this dispersed gang--all but two have become upper-middle class citizens, is palpable and genuine. The "new" German police seem quite concerned with what will appear on the "Abendschau" or Evening News--quite refreshing. Highly recommended. And the soundtrack, titled "Was tun, wenn's brennt" is also superlative.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing theme -- but silly, contrived and predictable.
Review: The concept of this 2001 German film is intriguing. It's about a group of six self-proclaimed anti-establishment anarchists in Berlin who, in the 1980s, set off bombs in protest against the establishment. Fast-forward a dozen years, and two of them are living in squalor and still dreaming non-conformist dreams, one runs a successful ad agency, one is an attorney, one a mother of two young children and one is a socialite. Their lives are suddenly changed forever however, when a bomb that they had planted twelve years before goes off and there is an investigation. Good theme. The problem with this film, however, is that it can't seem to decide if it's a comedy, a social satire, or a drama about how time changes people. It's filmed at a wildly fast pace and everyone is a caricature instead of a character. It held my interest because I wanted to see how the plot would turn out, which was silly, contrived and predicable. It was also mildly amusing as we get to know the characters and how they have changed. Acting was good and so was the creative use of cinematography with flashbacks shown in distorted colors. But I experienced neither laughter nor pathos nor interest even though I must admit that people who put this production together tried hard.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing theme -- but silly, contrived and predictable.
Review: The concept of this 2001 German film is intriguing. It's about a group of six self-proclaimed anti-establishment anarchists in Berlin who, in the 1980s, set off bombs in protest against the establishment. Fast-forward a dozen years, and two of them are living in squalor and still dreaming non-conformist dreams, one runs a successful ad agency, one is an attorney, one a mother of two young children and one is a socialite. Their lives are suddenly changed forever however, when a bomb that they had planted twelve years before goes off and there is an investigation. Good theme. The problem with this film, however, is that it can't seem to decide if it's a comedy, a social satire, or a drama about how time changes people. It's filmed at a wildly fast pace and everyone is a caricature instead of a character. It held my interest because I wanted to see how the plot would turn out, which was silly, contrived and predicable. It was also mildly amusing as we get to know the characters and how they have changed. Acting was good and so was the creative use of cinematography with flashbacks shown in distorted colors. But I experienced neither laughter nor pathos nor interest even though I must admit that people who put this production together tried hard.
Rating:
Summary: Brennen lassen!
Review: This film is brilliant. One doesn't have to be a Berliner who lived in the Kreuzberg neighborhood during the eighties to appreciate the social commentary involved. Everyone of radical persuasion has battled with notions of selling out, growing up, or moving on; this film just helps make light of the process. The characters in this film are archetypes of the neighborhood it is set in. Kreuzberg is a Berlin neighborhood still known as the radicals' borough today. Although geographically east, it was a western peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Berlin Wall. During Reagan's visit to Berlin in the eighties, Kreuzberg was practically under martial law. Interestingly enough, the building used in the filming of this movie is not at all in Kreuzberg, but rather in Friedrichshain, an east Berlin neighborhood! Movie fans can see it today on the Sonntag Strasse, near U-Bahn station Ostkreuz. The police headquarters in the film can be seen in the Pankow neighborhood just north of Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. Other great films about the world's most fascinating city are: Goodbye, Lenin; Sonnenallee; Berlin is in Germany; and we've all seen Run Lola Run, haven't we?
Rating:
Summary: This One Doesn't Set My Soul On Fire
Review: This film is not a classic, but it is an interesting portrayal of young adults growing up and moving on (or not.) It is 1987. In a rundown neighborhood of West Berlin, a group in their late teens or early 20s envisions themselves to be revolutionary anarchists. A dozen years later, all but two have grown up and moved into adulthood. Those two, now over thirty, are still painting graffiti on police cars and protesting the opening of yet another Mercedes Benz showroom. Suddenly, a bomb they had set (and forgot about) in 1987 explodes. This event brings the past back into the lives of those who had become an advertising executive, a lawyer, a mother, and a society girl. Their interaction with those still living the revolutionary life makes plain to the latter that -- for better or worse -- they are stuck in the past.
This movie has problems. For one thing, the premise is not terribly original, as this theme has been addressed before. Additionally, these so-called revolutionaries don't inspire much sympathy. How, exactly, did these people want to improve society? The German generation of '68 was rebelling against their parents, particularly their fathers, but what precisely was the cause of the generation of '87? And why set and leave a bomb in a building that someone might enter? The characters come across more as spoiled brats than as people who really wanted to change the world for the better.
The film succeeds in its various action sequences, involving a police station and an old homemade film. Overall, I'd give this movie three stars. Worth seeing, but not a must-see. A much more compelling look at German terrorists, and their lives in East Germany, is Volker Schlondorff's "The Legend of Rita."
Rating:
Summary: Especially good for postgraduates....
Review: What to Do in Case of Fire is a very good film if you refuse to let your sense of ethics creep in and ruin it. While the film revolves around six former German anarchists and one counter-counterculture cop, it's not trying to be prepossessing concerning the validity of anarchism, terrorism, or cultural revolution. Instead, it is a simple look back at that period just beyond youth but before full adulthood when a person has the opportunity still to be idealistic, artistic, personally expressive, and openminded. After that, the movie--and one of the former anarchists claims, "the nesting instinct takes over," a feeling with which anyone approaching or just beyond their 30s will empathize. Not overly sentimental or philosophical, What to Do in Case of Fire does try gloss over or stylize a few plot points, but for the most part it is worth a look; it is certainly worth the hour and forty-one minutes.
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