A good movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but since I always had a weak spot for Fatih Akin’s work, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even though it was not bad at all, to be honest, it was never really satisfying either. Indeed, Akin had decided to show the aftermath of a terrorist attack on focusing on a single woman who had lost her whole family and while this approach had some potential, I’m afraid it never really worked though. Basically, during the first part, the main character was displayed as rather apathetic, even borderline catatonic, and, in the second part, completely powerless. Of course, it seemed realistic which has always been the way Akin told his stories but, to be honest, in this case, it felt rather frustrating. On top of that, you could feel that, at some point, something else would finally occur to this woman so, as a viewer, you just wait for a very long time but nothing really happened after all. To make things worse, this movie was sold as a revenge story but, in fact, it was more about grieving after all. But, indeed, during the final act, the whole thing made a massive U turn, the main character wake up from her catatonic state, chased the terrorists all the way to Greece, built up her own bomb and managed to blow them (and herself) up. Seriously, for a movie that was going to a rather sluggish tempo until that point, that was suddenly a lot to handle, probably too much. It was not that it was completely ridiculous (it was still rather preposterous though), it was more the fact that it was so rushed and that it didn’t happen organically. To be honest, if they would have added 30 minutes to further develop the last act, it could have worked so much better. At least, we shouldn’t blame Diane Kruger who probably gave here her best performance so far. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Fatih Akin’s work.

7/10