The Guardians (2012)

the audience applauded

hyped garbage

Captivating movie !

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I must recognize that the photography, the camera work and the music is nice, but I found the story very disappointing. I find the film full of unnecessary violence, like if if the bullets where the message and not just a tool in the story. The actions scenes are just too long, but they don t get to be shocking, nor caricatures. The plot, supposedly happening in Germany, lacks credibility. The story follows the same universal patterns from any action history (villains, corrupt official, reluctant heroes), but it really insist on jumping into the German over and over again, so in that sense it should be a story more coherent with how life, crime, violence and military life is in that country. The characters, the dialogs and the action scenes really show like they tried just too hard to look like an American movie. There is also not a true conflict and the villains lack of good acting or deep personalities. Dialogues are predictable, as the characters dilemmas. I was expecting an stronger antagonist, but instead of that , the screenwriter opted for giving more space to secondary characters. Despite that, I must also recognize that Til Schweiger acting is good and Moritz Bleibtreu is an excellent actor and his character really good. At the end, is not gonna compete against the great drama-action movies, but is a good movie to have some fun and practice German.

Another reviewer wrote that Til S. knows what he's doing. And I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about the fact, that he's casting his daughter in every movie he's in (German movie that is), the last couple of years. Will Smith seems to be doing the same thing in America, so you can't blame him for that. You also should consider the sound effects and the way the action scenes are shot. He knows how to copy Hollywood and make it believable in a German setting (movie wise that is, not that this is close to any reality in Germany).But when it comes to story and character, this is as weak as they come. Casting Moritz Bleibtreu in this seems almost unnecessary. Not casting actual action performers from Germany is a real omission (Mathis Landwehr to name one!)! Acting also doesn't help, especially Schweigers daughter is off (but if you've seen the other movies you knew that). That won't change the fact, that anything Schweiger touches turns into gold (or at least German box office gold)

As an American, I went into this not knowing what to expect. I wasn't disappointed. I'm not thrilled, but not disappointed. Maybe I just don't understand European movie sensibilities (I recently saw Rust and Bone and thought there were pacing and story issues with that).I think Til Schweiger is an engaging actor (he reminds me of Guy Peace) and Karoline Suchuch is beautiful. The film was beautifully shot, it looked great. The plot - policeman protects girl from bad guys - is a staple of the genre and Schutzengel, as another entry in the canon doesn't add much that's new or prevent the next one. It has it's share of clichés: the hero is emotionally withdrawn and former military, the young cop who finds out his wife is pregnant gets killed (immediately), the 'crazy' best friend and the faceless, nameless henchmen who end up as cannon fodder.There are problems. The first being the reason the girl needs protection. She witnesses the killing of a boy by 'the villain' in what I would describe as a tragic accident. The boy sneaks the girl into the Presidential suite of the hotel where he works, she takes a laptop, 'the villain' comes back to the room, the boy and girl hide, 'the villain' notices the laptop missing, his security man comes to investigate and when the boy tries to put the laptop back 'the villain' panics and shoots and kills him. He actually seems quite remorseful when he realizes he's killed the boy. As far as I could tell 'the villain' is the villain because he may have laundered some money and is a arms dealer. A lot is made of the fact this man can own and carry a loaded gun. I guess they really hate guns in Germany though they must love them in movies as there is no actual fighting, all action is done with various handguns, shotguns and machine guns. Another problem is that it's too long at 130 minutes. It could have been cut to @ 90 by removing a sequence in a diner and a stop by the police that really adds nothing to the story.The relationship between the girl and her protector has some moments, but doesn't really build what I consider a substantial bond and I guess there has to be a 'love' relation in the form of the DA trying to prosecute 'the villain' and give us an upbeat ending.One thing that I was surprised to see, that separates this from all other action movies is the hero washing and crying over his best friend who was shot to death.This is not an excellent film but it did give me an interest in seeing what else Til Schweiger has done.

First of all, you have to give Till Schweiger some credit for trying to film a decent action movie that takes place in a German environment. The film almost worked out okay, it is a good try. What is very strange about "Schutzengel", is that Schweiger just copied and transferred classic US-action-movie-virtues totally unfiltered into his film: First, you have all kinds of smart hollywoodesque patterns dropped by different characters. Problem is, that those kind of lines really don't come out cool when a stiff German says them. German is just not the language for that kind of talk. It made me only feel embarrassed for the actors. Then the choices of characters are very "American": You have the tough ex-soldier, the tough righteous woman lawyer, the immoral bad guy's lawyer, the purely evil bad guy, a dirty politician and a crazy crippled ex-comrade. Most of the characters are shallow and you couldn't care less about them, by the way. However, some of the dialog works but for instance the repartee between the lawyers is over the top and would be appropriate for maybe a "Michael Clayton" but certainly not for this environment. For no reason at all, the bad guy sometimes even switches into English („What the fu.k?"). Then there are these corny moments that everyone knows from almost every action movie: a cop on his last day tells somebody how much he is looking forward to go on a trip with his beloved wife just before getting shot by some bad guy etc. I don't want to put spoilers in here so I'll just give away that there is a moment like this in the film - awkwardly staged and very, very obvious. You don't know and thus really don't care about the character before he gets killed, so Schweiger tries to use his klutzy fist to punch some empathy right into your stomach. This try, off course, is in vain and so bad, that it cost the film at least two stars. You are actually glad the guy dies for Schweiger used him to spice up his film with some pubertal fart jokes. And last but certainly not least, Schweiger uses the Bundeswehr, the German army, as background for his main character and his best buddy that helps him and the girl during the movie. Heroic soldiers, that proudly served their country… This is naturally very appropriate in US-films- it comes with the culture. If you do such a thing in a German production, though, it just seems weird, out of place and improperly propagandistic. Giving a character a war- backstory wound is not such a bad idea, especially when traumatized ex-soldiers are still a pretty new thing in Germany. But the way it's presented here is just superficial and has nothing to do with anything in the film. At some point someone says about the main character, "He always was a soldier, he always will be…he's a warrior". I think it is safe to say that in Germany there isn't anybody who is a "true" soldier for life and a real warrior. This again has to do with our understanding of this countries past and would rather fit to an US-soldier. I also found the cinematography during dialogues is way too close-up. If it was a TV-movie I'd understand due to the limitation of the smaller screens. But on the big screen I felt a little annoyed having to be way too close to the characters. All these close-ups also bare the problem, that during dialogues, the cutting from one character away to the other and back, is really hard to follow: One face would fill out the right side of the screen and the other would fill the left side, which forces the audience to turn their heads as fast as when watching a tennis match. Also, the editor must have had a hard time editing the dialogues due to mistakes or so, since he cuts away between the talking instantly without any obvious). In addition the editing of the action sequences where just confusing and made no sense at all: People were shooting in different directions and a lot of times you had to wonder what they are shooting at. I guess, they tried a "Quantum of Solace"-thing, where the editing was crazy fast. But it didn't work out for them in "Schutzengel". However, all in all, I am convinced that the script was written to be shot in the US. I am sure the script was written in English originally taking place in an US-environment. That would explain the scene in the American-style dinner, the American cars and some of the props they used in the main character's best buddies house which looked like it was in the Midwest and not Brandenburg anyway. They probably couldn't get a green light in Hollywood so they just translated the script and changed the setting to Germany. Eventually, after having good revenues over here, they will remake "Schutzengel" over there, I am sure. As I always say, you have to respect Schweiger for what he is trying to do. In the end he usually succeeds. At least, it was an interesting Try – kind of.