"Der rote Kakadu" or "The Red Cockatoo" is a German German-language film from 2006, so this one had its 10th anniversary last year. It was directed by Dominik Graf who I consider perhaps the most overrated filmmaker we have in Germany right now. Three people worked on the script and for at least two of them the film is probably their most known work and this quantity of writers makes it especially disappointing to see such a mediocre outcome. Talk about too many cooks spoiling the broth. I like Zehrfeld and Schwarz (both around the age of 30 here) and the movie may have turned out even worse without them. Don't care too much for Riemelt, but he wasn't too bad either. The cast generally is fairly decent if you take a look at the rest of the performers here. The time where this is set is also interesting as with all the films before and after the 1960s we have here in Germany there are surprisingly few about the exact time the Berlin Wall was built here in Germany. This is another reason why the low quality of this film here is another letdown, there certainly was the opportunity to create something fresh and new.
The problems I had with this one are the exact same ones I keep having with other Graf films too. He seems to be trying so hard to make an impact in so many areas, be it historic context, character studies, thriller movies and you could find 3 or 4 more perhaps that he forgets elaborating properly and really convincingly in each and every single one of them. It is a bit of everything, but not enough of anything and at over two hours this makes it an extremely annoying watch at times because you just see that the talent isn't there. But once again, you definitely also have to blame the writers to some extent and the ending with the shot fired is a perfect example of bait and obvious drama with little depth over really substantial exploration. Sure you can be grasping at straws and try to find connections like the screaming stop or I'll shoot being liked to people trying to leave the country in the next decades, but I personally find it all a bit far-fetched. This film is not half as meaningful as it attempts to be, not half as witty or entertaining as it aspires to be. The problem is not the ambition, which is huge, the problem is the execution and that the talent was simply not there for the people who wrote the script. I suggest you stay far away from this one. Not recommended.
The problems I had with this one are the exact same ones I keep having with other Graf films too. He seems to be trying so hard to make an impact in so many areas, be it historic context, character studies, thriller movies and you could find 3 or 4 more perhaps that he forgets elaborating properly and really convincingly in each and every single one of them. It is a bit of everything, but not enough of anything and at over two hours this makes it an extremely annoying watch at times because you just see that the talent isn't there. But once again, you definitely also have to blame the writers to some extent and the ending with the shot fired is a perfect example of bait and obvious drama with little depth over really substantial exploration. Sure you can be grasping at straws and try to find connections like the screaming stop or I'll shoot being liked to people trying to leave the country in the next decades, but I personally find it all a bit far-fetched. This film is not half as meaningful as it attempts to be, not half as witty or entertaining as it aspires to be. The problem is not the ambition, which is huge, the problem is the execution and that the talent was simply not there for the people who wrote the script. I suggest you stay far away from this one. Not recommended.