Filmed in black and white with some great imagery; I love how this film looks with its art-house styling. There is a pretty good soundtrack with songs from the likes of David Bowie, Ian Dury, Kraftwerk and Devo
amongst others. All the performances were good but all delivered in a very 'matter of fact' manner. David Beames took centre stage as Robert with Lisa Kreuzer playing Ingrid. Sandy Ratcliff was Kathy and Andrew Byatt the Deserter but (for me) the star turn was a brief cameo from Sting as the Eddie Cochrane loving petrol pump attendant.
I must admit I was somewhat disappointed by this film. I expected a little more focus on the music for one thing and the fact that everyone in Bristol seemed to speak with a London accent didn't help! It has a very slow pace which I was prepared to accept as long as something happened. Sadly, apart from one bright sequence featuring Sting, not a lot seemed to. There are also sequences where the majority of the dialogue is in German, with no subtitles; very odd! I will give the filmmakers credit for some excellent imagery showing just how bleak an English winter can be (even in the South). Over all I'd say one for lovers of art-house films
for them, Recommended
for the general cinebuff
maybe not.
My Score 6.4/10
IMDb Score: 6.3/10 (based on 296 votes at the time of going to press).
MetaScore: NO DATA: (Based on 0 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: NO DATA (based on 0 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 12/100 'Want to See' (based on 625 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.
