The Robber

Whenever the movie or a TV show is based on real events or people, its a slippery slope. There is that pesky,annoying difference between the movie and real life. In real life one encounters all kinds of people, makes little contact with them and continues his own way. In the movie, alas, we need much more. The true story based on the marathon runner with a penchant for robbing banks, sounds very original and interesting.The trouble is that Johannn, the lead character stays completely unknown to us by the end of the movie. We have no idea what makes him tick, what his motives are. His stony, stoic expression doesn't give away much. He keeps running and by the end of the movie, I felt the same, albeit running away from the TV set.

What things do ordinary people need in lives? Money, a house, a family, children, happiness, love I guess. But the main character of this film rejected all those things wanted by others (except him). Why? Because of his different identity. Life has another shape and sense in his mind (which is both the most interesting and strangest part in the film). The Robbers's activity seemed to be nonsense and destructive comparatively to common reasons. But The Robber is neither an adrenaline maniac nor a risk searcher. He is just a man, who can live only in running. In this case everything (even including his life) is not meaningless and the reality is closer to him than ever before. Although we are not told how Mr Rittenberger became such an emptied "stranger" (refer to Camus), I think that it is not as imроrtant line as thinking about his present life, and the director made us free to analyze this situation and problems in it. Behind the running and robbing (which are just images in my opinion) there are serious questions about the human being, human existence, the meaning of life, the person's identity etc., - the area for Q&A is really huge.

Andreas Lust lovely performed a state of mind of the main character, who stood at the existential threshold, observing the world from the outside . It is a truly European cinema with minimalistic cover but with the strong and thoughtful content inside.

(If you want a summary of the film, read anybody else here.) Despite the activities shown, the film abounds in "still waters." The presentation of activities and the principal character sticks solely to the surface without any explanations. The film is enigmatic and compelling, perhaps even boring to some. Any people seeing this together will have much to discuss afterwards.

Anyone seeing it will come in knowing the robber is a runner since that is the basis for all the advertising. I'm no runner and usually not very interested but this was especially fascinating. The actor Lust portrays the title character in a beautifully minimalist performance and also gives the footwork a distinctive style. I don't know if it would win races but it sure works in this film.

Acting and all aspects of the filmmaking are excellent overall. Even the music for the end credits is good for emerging from the deep waters.

Austrian-German co-production, Der Räuber (The Robber, 2010), based on the real events, tells the story about the long-distance runner, who could've lived a decent life, having a loving and caring girlfriend, a solid place to stay, and an extraordinary talent for long-distance running that he could've easily made a good living on, but instead, he additionally specializes and excels in bank robbing, becoming an addict of such an unusual activity for no other obvious reason but for possible "beauty of a criminal campaign" and adrenaline rush received along. (He's hinted times and again that he couldn't have cared less about the stolen money itself, by jamming it into black rubbish plastic bags, as if he was going to trash it.) One of those life stories that you cannot help but get unpleasantly amazed with how all the reasonable prerequisites for a good life, though inexplicably, yet seemingly so unnecessarily, get flushed down the drain, apparently faithfully presented in the movie with understandable, ergo acceptable lack of intention to ease the answers to the hard whys.

Well I say it's a true story it is, as usual, based on real facts. The film is about a marathon runner called Johann Rettenberger played by the uber brilliant Andreas Lust ('Munich'). After being released from prison for armed robbery he goes on to win a Viennese marathon. He is though a loner and his parole officer is concerned that he seems to shun the company of others – 'the loneliness of the long distance runner' personified as it were.

He soon moves in with an old flame who is still carrying a torch for him. He meanwhile remains as cold as a fish and aside from practice runs he starts to do armed robberies all over Austria. He seems to love the thrill of the chase as much as the loot he is making off with. What follows is a really extraordinary story of a life quite literally on the run. This is in German with good English sub titles.

This is a very well made film, with Lust putting in an excellent performance of a man who is so far removed from societal norms that he has his completely own set of values. This is based on a novel but the real story comes from Johan Kastenberger who did all his robberies in a Ronald Regan mask and his story is probably more sensational than as depicted here. Either way a really superb way to spend 100 minutes and a film I can recommend to all lovers of Euro based crime cinema.