Das Phantom

The movie starts off lightly - two police officers, Leo and Pit, are on a stakeout mission with information that members or supporters of the RAF left wing terrorist group are returning to Germany possibly to negotiate a deal. What seems to be a boring job finishes with everybody being dead on the scene. Only Leo is left, even his commander gets killed shortly later and the tape from the listing device is missing. No evidence and he is the prime suspect by now.

So Leo is on the run, searching for answers and at every place his pursuers will show up soon. With each information it seems that the rumor might actually be true: some of the killings were not planned by the RAF but the real source is in one's own government services. How to get out of the situation when you have become the public enemy number one?

The unusual end of the film might be irritating but it is actually part of the trick that makes people to remember the film. Viewers have been rethinking the RAF part of German history and so the film got a number of viewer awards. And I really like the last scene with the tape playing again the "König von Deutschland" song that was recorded in the first scene of the film. Great idea as the song is mocking about politicians but what starts out lightly feels grim in the end. A moment to remember.

Just like you would expect for a TV production for this station (which is not exactly known for high-quality movies), the movie has a lot of action scenes, and you might even call it thrilling. The acting is quite okay. Unfortunately, there are not many other positive aspects. The movie consists entirely of a sequence of clichés (some of which are quite stupid), combined with some material taken from German history and mixed with conspiracy theories. There are lots of other movies with similar stories, but much better presented.

To be fair, I should mention that the movie has won awards in Germany, but I seriously wonder why. In summary, you can watch the movie if you are bored, and it's not entirely a waste of time, but there is much better material out there.