The Baader Meinhof Complex

The Baader Meinhof Complex

The Baader Meinhof Complex

At the end I was impressed how powerful the German terrorism organization R.A.F. was led by some students. It's an interesting documentation with full of plots and many sceneries in different countries. I was surprised how the students got in touch with other international terrorists that offered their assistance to them. The terror acts are well combined with original material from that time. I had really the sensation to live in the seventies and I have to congratulate all the stuff for this good job. All the actors delivered a solid performance except Bruno Ganz that was in my opinion misplaced here. I liked him much more better in his role as Hitler in DER UNTERGANG. What I missed therefore was an accurate development of suspense elements and a dramatic dynamic countdown because some scenes were too mechanic. If you want to see a better terrorist movie don't miss MUNICH or THE ASSIGNMENT. My rating is an average 5/10.

I was shocked. With what is happening around us, and having lived through communism, capitalism, Russia and the US, you come back to the leftist ideas if you feel for justice. And you hope that there must be a delicate balance for justice. I never knew that Europe lived through things like this. Even more: Germany. That's why the film was a shock for me. Russia lived through its brief terrorism period. As did the US. But nothing of the scale of RAF and the response to it. I think the film is GREAT. It is stupid to find small things, but Germans have a thing for details, I guess (having read their reviews, everyone did say something in critique, wtf). My resume: I was thinking a lot and feeling a lot of emotions because of the film. I think the main idea of the film is: WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND. WATCH OUT, CAPITALISTS AND TOTALITARIANS!

Living a long way away from Germany this film really is something of a curiosity. I was aware of the baader meinhof terrorist group and one would have thought that there was plenty of material here to make an interesting movie about a time of turmoil in German history. I was in fact living in England 1972-75 and was in Germany at times during this period. The film looked very 1970's and the acting was fine. I think that the problem with the film, and in my view a major one, was the lame script and a series of characters that didn't manage to get through to me in any human way and by the end I really didn't care about them or what happened to them. The second phase of the campaign to free the main characters was not explained in any great depth and just seemed to materialise from nowhere. Not a German classic in my opinion, not even a good film and perhaps at over two hours running time far too long and self indulgent by the director

I am not an expert on the subject of terrorism or Baader-Meinhof but I do know a lot about related subjects, and it seems to me that this movie, although clearly done on a high budget, does not stick too much to the truth. Although the acting is fine, I don't believe at all that Ulrike Meinhof and especially Andreas Baader really were like that and acted like that. Especially the silly behavior in the PFLP training camp. There is no way they would have acted like that. It is just not credible. So it's a nice movie, but probably just reading the Wikipedia article or watching a good documentary on this subject would give a better picture of what really happened and how these people were really like.

History is unkind to terrorists who try to explain their actions. Attempting to explain the politics of the Baader-Meinhof group to a modern day cinema crowd wouldn't really work. And to the films credit, it doesn't really try. We get to see a simple progression from student banditry to terrorism in a slightly Stone-like almost random gathering of action scenes. Then we get to see the air get slowly released from the original group as their members lose influence and freedom and the action goes global. Unlike Downfall, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to give the viewer any new perspectives. The acting is great, and watching them pays off. Ultimately the RAF myth survives fairly untouched. We glimpse at the damaged nature of German society, without picking up any true insights. In fact there are a few neoglisms floating about. Enjoy the film, read up on the history afterwards. But don't worry about the politics.

An absolutely splendid movie running to 140 minutes and every minute absorbing. Like boston strangler for me last night, this was an era and story of true life revisited today. As I grew up, I knew of Baader Meinhof terrorism but did I know the truth? this film gets to the heart of the matter, it certainly is no documentary and the acting by all the main characters is completely realistic. not sure of the relevance of the * beach stuff at the beginning of the film, but the remaining graphic scenes in the film serve their entertaining purpose. Of course, I saw the 'Munich' film which looked at the israeli killings through a different light but this film very well puts the wrongdoings of the 60s into prospective and focuses a glowing light on terrorism which has happened ever since. The real force in the film seemed to me to be Ukruke Meinhof. It lost out in Oscar nomination but is a film to be watched throughout and not missed

And this is what I like. We can read about it later if we want more details. The reconstitution here is just plain great. Great fights, great bombings, great shootings, better than americans. The acting is excellent. We are plunged into a dark past for two hours. And the germans make the best terrorists.