"Russendisko" is a German 100-minute movie from 3 years ago starring Matthies Schweighöfer and Friedrick Mücke (these 2 often play together) plus Christian Friedel, who is mostly known for playing the main character in the Oscar-nominated "The White Ribbon". The writer and director is Oliver Ziegenbalg and while he wrote quite a few films already (also movies starring Schweighöfer and Mücke), he has never directed a film before or after "Russendisko". This film is based on the very successful autobiographical Wladimir Kaminer novel and Schweighöfer also plays Kaminer in here.
The story is about 3 young Russians and focuses on the usual: love, friendship, fun etc. and a touch more about where you belong this time compared to other Schweighöfer films. And as usual, he is pretty underwhelming. I will never understand why he or his movies are so famous as he does not have a lot of range and basically plays the same character in every movie. Only makeup and costumes tend do differ. I personally would not have known that this was about Kaminer if it hadn't been told us early on. Then again, this may also be the reason because the book is simply not interesting or memorable enough in terms of the story to make this a working movie. In any case, I did not care for any of the characters and I find Schweighöfer with his mannerisms as unlikeable as usual. The voice-over narration is pretty bad too. He certainly is not a good narrator at all. There are parts of the story that I find very unrealistic, but I'll give them the favor of the doubt here as a lot of it probably really happened.
As a whole, this is nowhere near Germany's best films of the last 5 years in terms of quality. Do not be fooled by it being among Germany's most famous films of the last 5 years. I am yet to see a performance by Schweighöfer that I find really convincing. Honestly, I don't think he has it in him and I doubt it will ever gonna happen. "Russendisko" is a disappointing movie and I do not recommend it. The only positive thing about it is the music on 2-3 occasions.
The story is about 3 young Russians and focuses on the usual: love, friendship, fun etc. and a touch more about where you belong this time compared to other Schweighöfer films. And as usual, he is pretty underwhelming. I will never understand why he or his movies are so famous as he does not have a lot of range and basically plays the same character in every movie. Only makeup and costumes tend do differ. I personally would not have known that this was about Kaminer if it hadn't been told us early on. Then again, this may also be the reason because the book is simply not interesting or memorable enough in terms of the story to make this a working movie. In any case, I did not care for any of the characters and I find Schweighöfer with his mannerisms as unlikeable as usual. The voice-over narration is pretty bad too. He certainly is not a good narrator at all. There are parts of the story that I find very unrealistic, but I'll give them the favor of the doubt here as a lot of it probably really happened.
As a whole, this is nowhere near Germany's best films of the last 5 years in terms of quality. Do not be fooled by it being among Germany's most famous films of the last 5 years. I am yet to see a performance by Schweighöfer that I find really convincing. Honestly, I don't think he has it in him and I doubt it will ever gonna happen. "Russendisko" is a disappointing movie and I do not recommend it. The only positive thing about it is the music on 2-3 occasions.