Baader (2002)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

"Baader" is an almost 15-year-old film by editor, writer and director Christopher Roth. The film runs for slightly under 2 hours and stars the late Frank Giering as the title character. Also in here is the (also late) Vadim Glowna playing one of the biggest supporting characters and Hinnerk Schönemann, a personal favorite of mine. If you know a bit about German history, you certainly have heard of Andreas Baader, the most feared left-wing terrorist a couple decades ago during the days of the RAF, Red Army Fraction. Unfortunately, this movie here is (unlike the Oscar-nominated "Baader Meinhof Komplex") not historically accurate at all, but almost in its entirety a work of fiction, not only in terms of the final moments of Baader and the movie. Yes there were other characters that existed and played a major role back then, but this is basically it.However, this is not why I did not manage to appreciate this one. I personally felt that it was just trying so hard to be shocking and controversial that it forgot to tell a really captivating story. The inclusion of terrorist attacks felt fairly random and definitely could have been elaborated on in a more impressive manner. Also the movie felt way too long. I think they should have kept it at maybe 95 minutes as this way the focus could have been clearly superior than it finally was. It is tough for me to find a reason to really recommend this one, be it in terms of storytelling or historic significance. This just wasn't a good watch. Thumbs down.

There's no doubt this unfruitful movie cannot keep up with other famous films like "Munich", which comes up to the same genre.The main character, Andreas Baader (former Leader of the RAF), is embodied by Frank Giering, who is without doubt a miscast. Baader used to be a charismatic, spleenish and aggressive Leader, who was far from being "Mister nice guy". The movie tries to establish a love-story between Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader, which is at the beginning equatable to a stereotypic Hollywood-movie. However, the history of the RAF was less-than-harmonic as the storyline pretends: Particularly Andreas Baader as a decided aggressive person never embodied a nice guy, as Frank Giering in his role suggests, but rather a wakefully psycho, who terrorised a whole nation.Apart from the miscast of the main character, this movie is rather fiction than part of contemporary history. In fact, Baader died in prison and committed suicide. However, this movie pretends that the Leader of the RAF died on the run, which is, without doubt, a false illustration. Fiction should never be mixed up with contemporary history, mainly if the imaginary end of this movie is twice as boring as the "true story".In short, this movie is kind of waste. Compared with the RAF, the characters symbolize a knock-off. Furthermore, the story is too far away from the historical events, which is kind of disappointing, especially as a result of the ridiculous ending. There's neither rhyme nor reason in that.

I was disappointed by this movie, maybe because i had the wrong expectations. My expection was to have a portrait about the person "Andi Baader", maybe how and why he became what he was. But it seems more like drifting away from the historical happenings into an "0815-gangster-movie"... including "a peaceful meeting of the opponents" (the meeting Krone - Baader during night on the road!) the death of Baader is so far away from reality... more in an idealistic gun-hero image "alone against the world" ...the abduction and assassination of Martin Schleyer is missing, too. Baader is an political thriller playing in a moving period of German history, using Names of real RAF-Members, but not displaying it in a historical "retrospective", but in a fictional story

As far as I knew Baader-Meinhof was some sort of a anarchist group of early 70s. I still think it is like that because the movie did not give me any other information about them. Were they Marxist? If so, were they Maoist, Leninist or else? Well of course, this is not the intention of the movie. The intention is to create a cult around the personality of Baader. Of course The Americans have their bandit heroes like Jessie james, so the Germans had Baader! Baader is also represented as a Steve Mac Queen type of macho guy... But there was ONE MAJOR PROBLEM for the director: Ulrike Meinhof! What are you gonna do with her? After all the gang is named "Baader-Meinhof" and not Baader...So the solution is there: Ignore Ulrike as much as possible. Reduce her to the status of a silly woman who forgets the money bag she steals. And at the end she just disappears like that! And as far as other female figures are concerned, you just show them as weak, cheeky girls who joined the gang because they fell for Baader. Well, this movie really disappointed and angered me because it tells the story of real people who wanted to create (in their own ways) a fair and Just world. But I don't see the same fairness and justice in the way they are represented. I also think that the end of the film is very funny! Why don't you tell straightforwardly that the guy has committed suicide? And what about this Police chief who cries next to him? Who is gonna believe that?....