I have to disagree with a lot of comments in here, even though I can understand why it is so easy to get the movie wrong.
Fact is that it mixes fiction with actual facts. Whether or not this is appropriate for a topic as sensitive as this one can be debated, but I think that it is legitimate as such.
I would disagree with the guy writing that the intention of the movie is to create a cult around the personality of Baader - that cult was there long before that movie, and still is nurtured, not only among leftist and teenager-circles.
My impression was rather that the movie tries to reflect a point of view that was not so unlikely in the 70s - the one of a certain hidden admiration for the RAF as a romantic reflection of the "out-law", fighting for freedom. At some point in the movie, there's said that according to a survey, 25% of the people in West Germany had sympathies for the Baader-Meinhof-gang - that is historically correct. I don't want to say that the end justifies the means, and it was soon after the first people were killed by the RAF that sympathies started to vanish. (You also have to know that during the time shown in the movie, there had not been even nearly as many people falling victim to the RAF as shown in the movie. The RAF started to be fairly more unscrupulous and violent in the later years, sometimes referred to as the "2nd or 3rd generation" of the RAF.)
So, I would argue that the movie has a right to exist not as a biopic or a semi-documentary, but as a reflection of a certain (maybe guilty) fascination for a subject that is not one single person's, but some sort of cultural phenomenon.
And here comes the big HOWEVER:
I have to agree with the people arguing that this movie does not offer much to people who are not familiar with the history of the RAF. Not only will it be rather erratic to them at parts, I imagine, but there's also a certain danger to it. If you know the facts, you are able to read the movie as an interpretation of historical events that is as well known as the facts themselves - thus, it becomes a contra-statement. If you do not know those facts or the debate around them, you certainly can get the impression of Andreas Baader as some sort of tragical hero - movie-style. And you certainly can say a lot about the RAF and Baader as a person, but that certainly is far from the truth.
A whole different thing is the fact that the movie has obvious flaws as a movie. The casting is not the smartest one. Frank Giering most of the time rather seems to be try-hard cool than really charismatic - I just don't buy the fact that this guy should be able to lead that many people into illegality. Especially since he doesn't really say many smart thing. Now, I do know that this seems to be true to the historical facts (Baader never was the theorist of the group, and there are a lot of people who would argue that the RAF never was about a theoretical base in the first place), but since Baader is doing pretty much all of the talking and all the other members of the RAF are reduced to mere bystanders, the overall impression is a rather uneven one. I would say that the weak dialogs are one of the biggest flaws of the movie. Plus, the director is sometimes really over-obvious with what he wants us to see, so that especially when it comes to romance (and there is one, because there obviously had to be some sort of Bonny&Clide-theme in it), it sometimes even comes close to cheesy. If it would have been a little more exaggerated, it could have worked for the movie, to make more clear the intentional fictionality of it, but unfortunately, it often looks more like the director's or the actors' incompetence of doing better.
Unfortunately, the movie is by far not as clever as the idea it is based on.
Fact is that it mixes fiction with actual facts. Whether or not this is appropriate for a topic as sensitive as this one can be debated, but I think that it is legitimate as such.
I would disagree with the guy writing that the intention of the movie is to create a cult around the personality of Baader - that cult was there long before that movie, and still is nurtured, not only among leftist and teenager-circles.
My impression was rather that the movie tries to reflect a point of view that was not so unlikely in the 70s - the one of a certain hidden admiration for the RAF as a romantic reflection of the "out-law", fighting for freedom. At some point in the movie, there's said that according to a survey, 25% of the people in West Germany had sympathies for the Baader-Meinhof-gang - that is historically correct. I don't want to say that the end justifies the means, and it was soon after the first people were killed by the RAF that sympathies started to vanish. (You also have to know that during the time shown in the movie, there had not been even nearly as many people falling victim to the RAF as shown in the movie. The RAF started to be fairly more unscrupulous and violent in the later years, sometimes referred to as the "2nd or 3rd generation" of the RAF.)
So, I would argue that the movie has a right to exist not as a biopic or a semi-documentary, but as a reflection of a certain (maybe guilty) fascination for a subject that is not one single person's, but some sort of cultural phenomenon.
And here comes the big HOWEVER:
I have to agree with the people arguing that this movie does not offer much to people who are not familiar with the history of the RAF. Not only will it be rather erratic to them at parts, I imagine, but there's also a certain danger to it. If you know the facts, you are able to read the movie as an interpretation of historical events that is as well known as the facts themselves - thus, it becomes a contra-statement. If you do not know those facts or the debate around them, you certainly can get the impression of Andreas Baader as some sort of tragical hero - movie-style. And you certainly can say a lot about the RAF and Baader as a person, but that certainly is far from the truth.
A whole different thing is the fact that the movie has obvious flaws as a movie. The casting is not the smartest one. Frank Giering most of the time rather seems to be try-hard cool than really charismatic - I just don't buy the fact that this guy should be able to lead that many people into illegality. Especially since he doesn't really say many smart thing. Now, I do know that this seems to be true to the historical facts (Baader never was the theorist of the group, and there are a lot of people who would argue that the RAF never was about a theoretical base in the first place), but since Baader is doing pretty much all of the talking and all the other members of the RAF are reduced to mere bystanders, the overall impression is a rather uneven one. I would say that the weak dialogs are one of the biggest flaws of the movie. Plus, the director is sometimes really over-obvious with what he wants us to see, so that especially when it comes to romance (and there is one, because there obviously had to be some sort of Bonny&Clide-theme in it), it sometimes even comes close to cheesy. If it would have been a little more exaggerated, it could have worked for the movie, to make more clear the intentional fictionality of it, but unfortunately, it often looks more like the director's or the actors' incompetence of doing better.
Unfortunately, the movie is by far not as clever as the idea it is based on.