The ice Bear

This article describes the German feature film Der Eisbär . For the music project of the same name, see: Der Eisbär (music project)

Movie
Original title	The ice Bear
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	1998
length	90 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Til Schweiger , Granz Henman
script	Granz Henman
production	Vesna Jovanoska
music	Klaus Badelt , Henning Lohner
camera	Greg Littlewood
cut	Alexander Berner
occupation
Til Schweiger : Leo Karina Krawczyk : Nico Benno Fürmann : Fabian Florian Lukas : Reza Jürgen Tarrach : Manni Vladimir Weigl : Thomas Thierry van Werveke : Norbert Robert Viktor Minich : Boris Ralph Herforth : plainclothes policeman Ralf Richter : plainclothes policeman Leonard Lansink : Bartender Paul's Eck Leander Haussmann : Stephan August Schmölzer : Heinz Willi Thomczyk : Alfred Christof Wackernagel : Fritz Katharina Thalbach : Hilde Manfred Lehmann : Agent Peter Maffay : Alex Heiner Lauterbach : health inspector Tom Gerhardt : Manager American Diner

The polar bear is a German thriller - comedy from 1998 and is the directorial debut of Til Schweiger, who also plays the lead role in the film.

action

The film begins with a seriously injured man driving an elegant Mercedes classic car to the choleric gang boss “Health Inspector”. The health inspector gets into the car with the man, is angry that burgers have obviously been consumed en masse in his car , and asks the man who it was; but he doesn't get a word out because he is badly injured. The health inspector then switches off the car radio and thus releases a previously installed car bomb.

Then the actual film action begins, which takes place a few hours before the car explodes. The attractive professional killer Nico is hired by two accomplices to bring the classic car to the health inspector. A bomb was installed here to kill him. If this plan fails, none of them will survive this night, one of the crooks speculates. Nico drives off and lets the two infantile young men Fabian and Reza steal the car. These are now driving through the city at night to hit on girls with the car. When they discover one of Nico's firearms, they commit a bizarre attack on a fast food restaurant: instead of money, they ask for 40 “meat rolls”. Desperate, Nico sits down in the Pauls Eck bar to get drunk.

Leo works as a killer under the well-known alias "polar bear". On his last assignment, he kills the target, who should have stayed alive. This message does not reach Leo until the order has already been carried out. The henchmen of his boss, the health inspector, are looking for him to eliminate him. Desperate, he too sits down in the Pauls Eck pub . There he meets Nico and falls in love with her.

In the final, all parties meet in a Mexican standoff : Leo and Nico, Fabian and Reza, Leo's pursuers and two police officers. They threaten each other with handguns and yell at each other hysterically. Most of those involved are killed in the subsequent exchange of fire between the police and the killers. Nico and Leo are also hit by bullets. In addition to the four, one of the killers who should kill Leo survived the shooting. This is the man who then drives the car to the health inspector in the opening scene, so that inadvertently the murder attempt on the gang boss still succeeds.

Leo drives Fabian, Reza and Nico out of town. In the middle of the autobahn he lets Fabian and Reza walk, gives them a chunk of money beforehand and then drives with Nico to a remote meadow. There they both finally succumb to their gunshot wounds in the car. Fabian and Reza hitchhike in a truck and are happy about the money.

Reviews

"A superfluous film that only uses the surface stimuli of its role models from David Lynch to Quentin Tarantino , without even suspecting their substance."

- Lexicon of international film

"Charming little directorial debut by Schweiger with a good helping of Tarantino joke."

- tvspielfilm.de

The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

useful information

• In Germany, the film drew 733,000 people to the cinema.
• One of the last scenes, the meeting in front of the pub, is a quote from the subject from True Romance .
• The voice of Leo's mother is the voice of Kathrin Ackermann .
• The last track played in the film, to which Leo and Nico only drive alone, is Beautiful by Mandalay .
• Many references point to Cologne as the place of action, including the license plate of the classic car. In addition, Kölsch is served in Pauls Eck . However, the car of the civil patrol has Munich license plates, the car of Nico's persecutors has Berlin license plates, the car of the killers set on Leo has Dortmund license plates - and in the end Leo, Nico, Fabian and Reza flee in a car with Essen license plates. The license number of the Essen car is E-NA 98, the production company for the film is ena Film GmbH, the film dates from 1998.
• The pub is located in Cologne-Mülheim .
• The burger robbery scene is an almost identical adaptation from Haruki Murakami 's The Elefant Vanishes - The Second Bakery Attack .

Web links

• The polar bear in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The polar bear in the online film database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The polar bear. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 20, 2016 .