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jahn-michel
IMDb member since March 2013
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Free Rainer (2007)
A huge disappointment, but an interesting study of failure
25 August 2013 - 2 out of 8 users found this review helpful.
This is my first review for any title. I have watched a whole lot of movies, but never before felt so strongly an urge to share my opinion. I was actually looking forward to this one! I liked the underlying theme and always enjoy Moritz Bleibtreu, one of our few great actors. He did deliver an outstanding performance - the movie nonetheless didn't. Here's why: - The change of hearts of the main character is pretty much done in a cut from one scene in which he's still a self-loathing TV producer to the next where he isn't. Not much of a development there. It just sort of happens.
- The characters are all shallow and one-dimensional AND badly acted (except for the lead, which Bleibtreu plays as well as the retarded script allows him to)
- The great problem the movie is based on DOES NOT EVEN EXIST! They say that TV quotas control everything in TV and keep quality stuff from being broadcasted. Now that may be true to privately owned networks - in Germany though (as in other countries, too) it is stipulated by the law that public networks have to uphold a certain standard of "higher culture" and information in the public's interest. These networks are paid for directly by everyone whether they like it or not and do neither rely on advertising nor quotas! How can a TV producer achieve such a standing without understanding the difference between private and public networks? We all sure do! Maybe the writer should have researched just a tad more.
- Even if the fact I stated above wasn't true: A society is not defined by what is shown on TV. Even if there weren't public networks but nothing but trash and stupidity on every channel: There's still cinema, literature, music, any kinds of art one can access without a TV. Believe it or not: If you have read a book or magazine or visited an exposition someday without having had your TV telling you to, you rendered the movie's sentiment false by doing so.
- In the course of events Rainer and his fellow short-thinkers suspect the quotas to be rigged: Instead of a genuine elicitation they are instead forged by a few evil TV masterminds. While that is surprisingly not true, later in the movie the group around Rainer become just precisely what they feared to be the truth: a small group of people deciding on the quotas. How could nobody see that?! I thought "well, maybe that's where the movie shows us how they become corrupted by their newfound power" or something in the likes of that - but no, the moment passes and nobody seems to bat an eye.
- The movie states that there is bad and good TV. Nothing in between. The group never once fight about a broadcast some like whereas others don't. They just agree on everything, saving the movie from an interesting turn of events.
- When they find out that the quotas are in fact not rigged but very much accurate, they wonder how people could actually like and willingly watch trash TV. Rainer postulates that by having the networks shove trash into their audience's eyes for long enough, the viewers regarded the trash to be normal and started to demand it. Solution: Shove quality TV in their faces until the process repeats in favor of that. If this is true: Is such a society worth being saved? Is anyone who just blindly consumes like that really going to appreciate a screening of, say, Eraserhead? This is a horrible dystopia - and again, nobody seems to worry about that.
- After "the world is saved" and quality broadcasts have replaced the trash which was sent before, people can be seen going outside again - so now that it would actually be good to watch, they don't. What? Is all that's left to say.
All in all, this movie is a case in point for "TV is stupid" and, following it's sentiment, should have kept itself from being made. Avoid if you are looking for an intelligent, well crafted and well written movie. Watch, if you also enjoy videos of people falling on their faces. This is basically the same.
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