"Die Spiegel-Affäre" is a German movie from 2014 and it was directed by Roland Suso Richter and written by Johannes W. Betz, two fairly successful people from the German film industry, especially when it comes to small screen releases. And with this one here, they added to their impressive body of work as these 100 minutes also received a great deal of awards recognition. If you take a look at the cast, you will read the names of more than just a few somewhat famous actors from the German-speaking countries. I will not mention all these names as you can see them in the cast list anyway. Unfortunately I must say that I was not too impressed by the story or performances in here. This may also be partially due to personal bias because the time after World War II in terms of German history was never one that interested me that much really, so if the 1960s are more to your liking, then maybe it's worth seeing for you. I also think one of the problems here is that they just included way too many characters, but did not elaborate properly on most of them in terms of character development, which also means it is a bit of waste on talented actors as they simply had no material to really shine with. I see Fulton-Smith received some awards attention to for his portrayal of Franz Josef Strauß, but that's not too surprising as it is a really thankful role for an actor and even if most of what stays memorable about him is because of the character, FFS wasn't bad either. Certainly a nice change for him looking at the likes of Rosamunde Pilcher garbage films he also appeared in. Still, as a whole, I was never as captivated with this film or curious about the characters as I would have hoped. Maybe this one is only for people who were alive and conscious in the 1960s already and experienced the events of Spiegel vs Strauß, press vs. politics, first-hand. Thumbs-down from me. Not recommended.
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