Out of Order (1984)

I wanted to but couldn't!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Abwärts" or "Downwards" or "Out of Order" is a West German 85-minute film from 1984, so this one is already over 30 years old. The writer and director is Carl Schenkel and it is one of the filmmakers' most known works, especially if you only count his German-language movies. He received some nice awards attention here and same can be said about the cast. Götz George won a German Film Award for example for his performance here, even if it was not a supporting performance at all. He was clearly lead, if anybody was lead in here. The cast includes a whole lot of actors that are still really well-known in Germany today such as George, the really young Hannes Jaenicke in his very first performance and Wolfgang Kieling, who was also nominated in the same category like George. If you look at these three, you recognize that they stand for 3 different generations of actors. The only mentionable female performance comes from Dutch actress Renée Soutendijk, but she was also the film's biggest weakness I think, not because of her acting, but because of the way the character was written.The kissing scene with Jaenicke or the scene when she randomly tells George's character that she is about to get his job felt really bad and were among the film's weakest moments. Obviously the filmmakers tried to use her to create controversy between the two alpha-males in the elevator, but it felt forced and wasn't working at all. Subtlety is sadly not the film's biggest strength and these were the thriller moments that weren't working at all. I personally thought the film was at its best when the action took place outside the elevator, namely when there was danger somebody would be falling down or even dying. Yes there may have been a bit too many ropes in danger of being torn, but it was still edge-of-seat material and going by these sequences, it was an 8/10 even.Another couple words on the actors. Jaenicke may not give a great performance in terms of range, but he was at least as good as Kieling who added very little for me, and Jaenicke's biggest strength was his physical acting here with which he shines and given it was a rookie effort, it was pretty good. The supporting performances include familiar faces too such as the late great Klaus Wennemann, Ralf Richter or Fassbinder protégé Kurt Raab in a brief cameo early on. And while I enjoyed watching this film, I still see it as a bit of a missed opportunity as the claustrophobic component has been used convincingly on really not too many occasions and this one could have added an entirely new dimension of thrill to the film. I guess you really have to be claustrophobic to feel the protagonists' fear here. I was wondering more why they would not just wait in there for help instead of risking their lives again and again. Is oxygen really a problem? I am not sure. Also, there were sometimes too many coincidence for my liking, but it adds to the plot and drama and that's why I can live with it. Even if it's not a perfect film by any means, I still recommend seeing it. I like that they kept it essential with this short runtime and kept it from dragging. It had more positive than negative moments and George really shines once again. May he rest in peace and awesome he left us films and performances like this one here.

In 1983, there was a Dutch movie about a killer elevator called De Lift (which was remade by the director in 2001). Here's a German movie from 1984 about a killer elevator. Funny how that happens. Anyway, the one in De Lift was evil, but this one is just poorly designed and maintained.Four people get stuck in an elevator: a couple, a younger guy, and an older man with a suitcase. The night watchman doesn't notice the problem since the alarm had been turned off for the repairman who'd been there earlier. They try to get out, hurting themselves and smashing up the elevator in the process. They bicker a lot. The hand-held video-game playing, walkman-wearing young man is annoying, and the woman is surprisingly slutty. The actress is rather unusual-looking, with eyebrows tweezed away to almost nothing, and hair in a style that emphasizes how high her hairline is and how thin her hair is. Whoever did that to her should never have gotten the job!When repairmen come, they give the security guard a hard time. He has a German accent (the video I watched was dubbed in English), which they mock, and they complain about foreigners. I thought that was weird, since the movie was German. Did he have an American accent in the German-language version? I was also surprised that they try to raise the elevator car, rather than lower it; I wonder if that is the procedure in real life?Still, I enjoyed this. It's not great, but is entertaining enough.I wonder if the elevator horror subgenre is played out. Someone ought to have one involving a paternoster lift (look it up) - those are pretty unusual; a friend of mine had ridden one and told me about it.Incidentally, the Worst Case Scenario Handbook writers have evidently advised the best way to survive a plummeting elevator is to lie down flat on the floor.

Have you ever been stuck in an elevator? I was, so I can tell you how it is: the lights go dim, the lift stops, you press the alarm. After a while, the lift moves again, you step out the door and promise your little boy to treat him to some ice cream for not panicking.That alone is not merely enough to fill a TV commercial. Consequently, if you plan to extend the scene to feature length, you have to add a little bit of spice to it. Job one - adding spice: very well done.You have one youngster-half-criminal well-enough looking dude, an old guy, frustrated by the view of a small pension awaiting him, who therefore filled his pocket with a DEM 100K loot on his last day, and a semi-successful businessman who wants to screw the you-don't-how-old-she-is ravishing employee.Well of course this ain't enough because at least you expect some sort of plot also. Job two - plot: not badly done.By all means, girlish 'she' shows cold shoulder to semi-pro, youngster pounces on the opportunity, old man acts astoundingly cool. And - so much for action - the cables do snap, there is a showdown in the elevator shaft, bad guy dies and old man walks away unharmed, plus: young guy eventually gets chick.Now for some cinematographics. Job three - really well done.Whatever claustrophobic vibes you might feel in such a situation - they delivered it. Motions, noises, everything, it all falls in place to make you 'live' inside that cabin.Last of all - dialogues. Job four - expectations exceeded.German moviemakers have always been well-known for a lack of ease. Here it's the same, but for a reason. Each of the characters has a personality, and the screenwrite took some time to fashion them. Whatever they say to one another shows a lot about who they are - people - but at the same time leaves lots of space to imagine what we don't know, or what we don't want to know. That's what those Germans are really good at, and not surprisingly many of those kind of movies are placed on a Tarantino level - at least by those who understand them. I've never seen the dubbed version (if there is one at all), so apparently you can only enjoy this piece if you are familiar with the German language.Read other comments to find out what actually happens in the movie.

The plot: Four people are caught in an elevator. One is a business man, the annoying kind who is aggressive and complains about everything and everyone and is a walking-talking sample of distilled stress and hostility. Then there's his colleague, a woman who is much more pleasant in her character. A teenage rebel who just broke into a coke machine and by his mere presence drives the businessman mad, and an older guy who just stole 100,000DM make up the rest of the cast...The movie is all about how they cope with their problem, as time goes on and on without any success in reaching the outside world, as the lights go out, and as the cables begin to snap one after the other....And yet, it isn't too exciting. The characters are stereotypes. The story is stupid and unlikely (how could so many things go so wrong in just one elevator?). You don't like the characters very much, you just hate one of them. And all the twists and turns in the plot are not contributing to the excitement, they are just stupid excuses for filling yet another few minutes with dialogue as the screenwriters keep running out of inspiration and ink on a full-length movie set in an elevator.Let's just hope "Phone Booth" will be a better effort...