First of all, you have to give Till Schweiger some credit for trying to film a decent action movie that takes place in a German environment. The film almost worked out okay, it is a good try.
What is very strange about "Schutzengel", is that Schweiger just copied and transferred classic US-action-movie-virtues totally unfiltered into his film: First, you have all kinds of smart hollywoodesque patterns dropped by different characters. Problem is, that those kind of lines really don't come out cool when a stiff German says them. German is just not the language for that kind of talk. It made me only feel embarrassed for the actors. Then the choices of characters are very "American": You have the tough ex-soldier, the tough righteous woman lawyer, the immoral bad guy's lawyer, the purely evil bad guy, a dirty politician and a crazy crippled ex-comrade. Most of the characters are shallow and you couldn't care less about them, by the way. However, some of the dialog works but for instance the repartee between the lawyers is over the top and would be appropriate for maybe a "Michael Clayton" but certainly not for this environment. For no reason at all, the bad guy sometimes even switches into English (What the fu.k?").
Then there are these corny moments that everyone knows from almost every action movie: a cop on his last day tells somebody how much he is looking forward to go on a trip with his beloved wife just before getting shot by some bad guy etc. I don't want to put spoilers in here so I'll just give away that there is a moment like this in the film - awkwardly staged and very, very obvious. You don't know and thus really don't care about the character before he gets killed, so Schweiger tries to use his klutzy fist to punch some empathy right into your stomach. This try, off course, is in vain and so bad, that it cost the film at least two stars. You are actually glad the guy dies for Schweiger used him to spice up his film with some pubertal fart jokes. And last but certainly not least, Schweiger uses the Bundeswehr, the German army, as background for his main character and his best buddy that helps him and the girl during the movie. Heroic soldiers, that proudly served their country This is naturally very appropriate in US-films- it comes with the culture. If you do such a thing in a German production, though, it just seems weird, out of place and improperly propagandistic. Giving a character a war- backstory wound is not such a bad idea, especially when traumatized ex-soldiers are still a pretty new thing in Germany. But the way it's presented here is just superficial and has nothing to do with anything in the film. At some point someone says about the main character, "He always was a soldier, he always will be he's a warrior". I think it is safe to say that in Germany there isn't anybody who is a "true" soldier for life and a real warrior. This again has to do with our understanding of this countries past and would rather fit to an US-soldier.
I also found the cinematography during dialogues is way too close-up. If it was a TV-movie I'd understand due to the limitation of the smaller screens. But on the big screen I felt a little annoyed having to be way too close to the characters. All these close-ups also bare the problem, that during dialogues, the cutting from one character away to the other and back, is really hard to follow: One face would fill out the right side of the screen and the other would fill the left side, which forces the audience to turn their heads as fast as when watching a tennis match. Also, the editor must have had a hard time editing the dialogues due to mistakes or so, since he cuts away between the talking instantly without any obvious). In addition the editing of the action sequences where just confusing and made no sense at all: People were shooting in different directions and a lot of times you had to wonder what they are shooting at. I guess, they tried a "Quantum of Solace"-thing, where the editing was crazy fast. But it didn't work out for them in "Schutzengel".
However, all in all, I am convinced that the script was written to be shot in the US. I am sure the script was written in English originally taking place in an US-environment. That would explain the scene in the American-style dinner, the American cars and some of the props they used in the main character's best buddies house which looked like it was in the Midwest and not Brandenburg anyway. They probably couldn't get a green light in Hollywood so they just translated the script and changed the setting to Germany. Eventually, after having good revenues over here, they will remake "Schutzengel" over there, I am sure.
As I always say, you have to respect Schweiger for what he is trying to do. In the end he usually succeeds. At least, it was an interesting Try – kind of.
What is very strange about "Schutzengel", is that Schweiger just copied and transferred classic US-action-movie-virtues totally unfiltered into his film: First, you have all kinds of smart hollywoodesque patterns dropped by different characters. Problem is, that those kind of lines really don't come out cool when a stiff German says them. German is just not the language for that kind of talk. It made me only feel embarrassed for the actors. Then the choices of characters are very "American": You have the tough ex-soldier, the tough righteous woman lawyer, the immoral bad guy's lawyer, the purely evil bad guy, a dirty politician and a crazy crippled ex-comrade. Most of the characters are shallow and you couldn't care less about them, by the way. However, some of the dialog works but for instance the repartee between the lawyers is over the top and would be appropriate for maybe a "Michael Clayton" but certainly not for this environment. For no reason at all, the bad guy sometimes even switches into English (What the fu.k?").
Then there are these corny moments that everyone knows from almost every action movie: a cop on his last day tells somebody how much he is looking forward to go on a trip with his beloved wife just before getting shot by some bad guy etc. I don't want to put spoilers in here so I'll just give away that there is a moment like this in the film - awkwardly staged and very, very obvious. You don't know and thus really don't care about the character before he gets killed, so Schweiger tries to use his klutzy fist to punch some empathy right into your stomach. This try, off course, is in vain and so bad, that it cost the film at least two stars. You are actually glad the guy dies for Schweiger used him to spice up his film with some pubertal fart jokes. And last but certainly not least, Schweiger uses the Bundeswehr, the German army, as background for his main character and his best buddy that helps him and the girl during the movie. Heroic soldiers, that proudly served their country This is naturally very appropriate in US-films- it comes with the culture. If you do such a thing in a German production, though, it just seems weird, out of place and improperly propagandistic. Giving a character a war- backstory wound is not such a bad idea, especially when traumatized ex-soldiers are still a pretty new thing in Germany. But the way it's presented here is just superficial and has nothing to do with anything in the film. At some point someone says about the main character, "He always was a soldier, he always will be he's a warrior". I think it is safe to say that in Germany there isn't anybody who is a "true" soldier for life and a real warrior. This again has to do with our understanding of this countries past and would rather fit to an US-soldier.
I also found the cinematography during dialogues is way too close-up. If it was a TV-movie I'd understand due to the limitation of the smaller screens. But on the big screen I felt a little annoyed having to be way too close to the characters. All these close-ups also bare the problem, that during dialogues, the cutting from one character away to the other and back, is really hard to follow: One face would fill out the right side of the screen and the other would fill the left side, which forces the audience to turn their heads as fast as when watching a tennis match. Also, the editor must have had a hard time editing the dialogues due to mistakes or so, since he cuts away between the talking instantly without any obvious). In addition the editing of the action sequences where just confusing and made no sense at all: People were shooting in different directions and a lot of times you had to wonder what they are shooting at. I guess, they tried a "Quantum of Solace"-thing, where the editing was crazy fast. But it didn't work out for them in "Schutzengel".
However, all in all, I am convinced that the script was written to be shot in the US. I am sure the script was written in English originally taking place in an US-environment. That would explain the scene in the American-style dinner, the American cars and some of the props they used in the main character's best buddies house which looked like it was in the Midwest and not Brandenburg anyway. They probably couldn't get a green light in Hollywood so they just translated the script and changed the setting to Germany. Eventually, after having good revenues over here, they will remake "Schutzengel" over there, I am sure.
As I always say, you have to respect Schweiger for what he is trying to do. In the end he usually succeeds. At least, it was an interesting Try – kind of.