Neue Vahr Süd (2010)
Frank Lehmann, 20, still lives with his parents in the dreary high-rise housing project "Neue Vahr" in Bremen. It's the year 1980 and Frank gets drafted to the army even though his friends assure him that "he's not really the guy for it". When he gets back home, after his first week at the army, his Dad has turned his room into a TV repair shop, so Frank has to move out. Luckily his old friend Martin is starting a commune with two other Punks in Bremens leftist borough "Viertel". Frank, without further ado rents the unlivable walk-through room. From now on Frank is a traveler between the Worlds. Each week he goes from the Army, with all the unconditional rules and regulations to the commune where his friends are preaching the world revolution. Frank is trying to avoid to stick out, but fails miserably, in both worlds.
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Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
"Neue Vahr Süd" is a German 90-minute movie from 6 years ago and the three people who made this (Hermine Huntgeburth, Christian Zübert and Sven Regener) have their names attached to several pretty famous German movies and this one here is a worthy addition to their bodies of work. The story is about a young man who ends up with the army, even if he had no intention to do so. In order to add some historic significance, the film plays before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but in West Germany. This is also why I would not call it really a historically interesting movie, but it is still better than Leander Haußmann's NVA for example as it actually tells an interesting story and the characters are much better written too. Not a problem at all that they somewhat recycled Hinnerk Schönemann and Robert Gwisdek here as both are good actors in my opinion.The main character is played by Frederick Lau, one of Germany's biggest stars right now after the very successful "Victoria". I like him as an actor, even if he has still a tendency to play his characters very similar. I think he can work on that still. Nonetheless, he manages the task of carrying this film here as he is in pretty much every scene and minute here. Miriam Stein plays the female lead character and I like her too. She has decent range and adds a lot to the more dramatic moments of this movie. She is basically the reason why this is more than just another fairly pointless comedy. Of course, the looks don't hurt either. Taking everything into account, "Neue Vahr Süd is a positive achievement. The good outweighs the bad and, in terms of small screen releases, it is definitely among the best Germany had to offer in recent past. I recommend watching it.