I enjoy watching indie films and have found some gems on Prime. Good Old Friends is one of them. Aesthetically-speaking, it has a cool 90's vibe due primarily to its stylish cinematography. It somehow has a video feel which is very appropriate for the story about friends reuniting after a few years in Berlin. The lighting and framing are really good overall and found it somewhat reminiscent of Soderbergh in his early days. Also, the shooting style is punctuated by the occasional striking shot such as the one framed up inside the beer cooler. I did find an occasional scene a bit too dark for my taste, such as the "magic box" scene, but this is a common complaint of mine even with big budget productions. I enjoyed the soundtrack and feel that it underscored the film perfectly and the Berlin setting gives the film a distinctly international flair. I believed the actors and feel they sold the "friends who grew mismatched due their individual courses in life" well. There's some great dialogue and the line "she's probably left me now," and also the part with the stripper berating them, made me laugh out loud. On a critical note, I found some of the scenes a bit long for my taste, at times the story momentum slowed a bit and some of the dialogue felt overly-improvised, which would have been sold better by shortening the scene, but all-in-all this made for a fun indie movie night with some unexpected story twists that kept things interesting.
