We were kings
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | We were kings |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| length | 107 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Philipp Leinemann |
| script | Philipp Leinemann |
| production |
Tobias Walker , Philipp Worm |
| music | Sebastian Fillenberg |
| camera | Christian Stangassinger |
| cut |
Jochen Retter , Max Fey |
| occupation | |
| |
We were Kings is a German drama and thriller by Philipp Leinemann from 2014. The film is set in the police environment of an unnamed German city and premiered on June 28, 2014 at the Munich Film Festival . It opened in theaters on November 27, 2014.
We were Kings is a film production by Walker Worm Film in coproduction with ZDF / Arte ( Das kleine Fernsehspiel ) and distributed by Summiteer Films. The film was shot in Munich, Halle and Leipzig.
action
When a special task force (SEK) accesses it, things get out of control. Two criminals are shot, a third is able to escape, and one of the SEK officers is taken to hospital seriously injured. The already high level of frustration continues to rise. When two other colleagues from the unit are found dead shortly afterwards, the group seeks revenge.
At the same time, the story of a youth clique who ekes out their existence in the adjacent quarter is told. Thorsten, who sees himself as a kind of leader, is admired by the little boy Nasim, who absolutely wants to be part of it, but is bullied by everyone. When Nasim finds the service weapon of one of the murdered SEK officers one night and slips it on Thorsten's best friend Ioannis, a fateful chain of violence is set in motion because the SEK unit around Mendes now believes they have found their perpetrator. In the chase that follows, Ioannis is badly mistreated and falls into a raging river. Mende's unit wants to cover up the event, but not only the colleagues from the patrol, but also individual members of the SEK, above all Kevin, protest. It dawns on them that they got the wrong guy.
While there is more and more rumbling within the police, Thorsten and his friends are now feverishly looking for Ioannis. Similar to the SEK, they too quickly believe that they have found their culprit in another gang from the neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Kevin finds out with the help of the patrol officer Nadine that in reality disputes and illegal business with the bouncer scene caused the death of the two SEK officers, but it seems hopeless, everyone just wants to save their skin and forget about the matter. Mendes in particular fears for the cohesion of his unit when suddenly Ioannis reappears. The police hide Ioannis from the SEK to protect him, but Mendes finds and murders him, but the crime is covered up. Nadine, a witness in the act, is transferred to the SEK as a reward for her silence. The youth gang Thorstens tortures Jacek to find out where Ioannis is. Nasim murders him to win Thorsten's friendship. Kevin quits the service.
reception
The film was received mostly positively. Stefan König from the Süddeutsche Zeitung praised the film as “a sensational police thriller” and said the film was a “sophisticatedly structured ensemble film”. The star praised the "dense script and excellent acting". The Hollywood Reporter compared the film with the multitude of high-class Scandinavian thrillers of recent times with their "tricky but coherent plots and impressive presentations".
Karl Hafner calls Philipp Leinemann's second feature film in the Tagesspiegel a "milieu study and social criticism, but primarily an excellent, pessimistic genre piece, as unfortunately rarely seen in German cinema". Kaspar Heinrich writes in Die Zeit that Leinemann succeeds in "a consistently dark and rough genre film", an "essay on friendship and loyalty", which is carried by an "ensemble of actors with strikingly precise cast" and, above all, "on the dynamics between its characters" live
The magazine Cinema compared the film with Dominik Graf's In the Face of the Crime , but "the behavior of Leinemann's characters would always be predictable", where "Graf undermines the clichés of the genre with irritating tricks". Overall, the film is a "predictable, erratic police thriller in which only the actors are convincing". In the film service it is said that the film is a "loud, woodcut-like, but top-class cast police film, which primarily focuses on macho behavior and testosterone, over which all nuances are lost". It was criticized that any "criticism of a possible institutional cover-up of criminal offenses by the police" fizzled out without consequences. Rudolf Worschech from the film magazine epd Film praised the film as a “successful, dark German police film” and made reference to Dominik Graf's SEK film Die Sieger : “Both function as introspection of a group and its mechanisms and celebrate a rough everyday authenticity. But precisely because Leinemann concentrates on internal reality, his dark film seems extremely compact and consistent. "
On the film website kino.de it was noted that Leinemann was not staging a “good crime scene or police call”, but a “tough big city crime story” in which the “line between good and evil, between law enforcement and outlaws” would be blurred. The film is a “drama marked by action and violence”, which not only “reminds us of earlier American cop thrillers in terms of the dramaturgy and rapid editing sequences”, “but also in the behavior of men who claim the right to vigilante justice and take revenge and place [themselves] like kings [...] above the law ”.
Awards
- Film Art Award Saxony-Anhalt 2014: Best Feature Film 2014
- Austin Film Festival Jury Award: Best Narrative Feature 2014
- MFG-Star Baden-Baden 2014
- Bavarian Film Award 2015: Best Image Creation
Web links
- We were kings in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- We were kings at filmportal.de
- We were kings at crew united
- Interview with Philipp Leinemann and Misel Maticevic at the Munich Film Festival
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for We Were Kings . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2014 (PDF; test number: 142 724 K).
- ↑ We were kings. (No longer available online.) Filmportal.de , archived from the original on December 2, 2014 ; Retrieved November 12, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ We were kings. Film releases , accessed November 12, 2014 .
- ↑ David Steinitz: Nightmares are better dreams. Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 1, 2014, accessed on November 23, 2014 .
- ↑ Out of Control: Police Thriller "We Were Kings". Stern , November 24, 2014, archived from the original on December 4, 2014 ; accessed on October 13, 2016 .
- ↑ Boyd van Hoeij: 'The Kings Surrender' ('We were Koenige'): Munich Review. The Hollywood Reporter , accessed on December 15, 2014 (English): "Reminiscent of the recent spate of high-quality Scandinavian crime films with their knotty but still coherent plots and impressive acting [...]"
- ↑ Karl Hafner: Lies and other truths. Der Tagesspiegel , July 7, 2014, accessed on October 29, 2014 .
- ↑ Kaspar Heinrich: Testosterone Full Elite. Die Zeit , November 25, 2014, accessed on November 26, 2014 .
- ↑ We were kings. Cinema , accessed November 19, 2014 .
- ↑ Ulrich Kriest: We were kings. film-dienst , accessed on November 19, 2014 (short review).
- ^ Rudolf Worschech: We were kings on epd-film.de, accessed on November 19, 2014.
- ↑ mk: We were kings. Busch Entertainment Media (kino.de), accessed on November 19, 2014 .
- ↑ Nomination MFG Star Baden Baden. Retrieved October 29, 2014 .
