The movie reminds one of a theater play gone wrong, from the awkward choice for the cast (the blonde/blue eyed, chubby Frank Gehring not only looked nothing like the skinny, dark haired Andreas Baader, but his play could not make up for the 'cognitive dissonance' one felt who knows/remembers original footage), to the historical 'facts' that were, quite frankly, badly researched (therefore wrong) and made misleading allusions to other parts of German political and time history. Originally, Baader's 'liberation' by Meinhof in 1970 took place at the Deutsches Zentralinstitut für soziale Fragen (German Central Institute for Social Questions) in Berlin. In the movie however, the sign on the door of the building Baader and Meinhof were led into reads 'Institut für Sozialforschung'(Institute for Social Research). The IfS is not only in Frankfurt (not in Berlin), but also directly connected to the Frankfurt School or Critical Theory of most prominently T.W. Adorno who were Marxist philosophers, very influential in the 1968 movement, but also radically critical of the RAF. That info given is therefore not only misleading, but drawing historically inaccurate and distorting connections. Another MASSIVE problem was the heavy Berlin accent Baader (Gehring) put on: Baader was born and raised in Munich and could for the life of him not master a Berlin dialect. Historical inaccuracy need not always taint the pleasure of a movie, but in the history of the RAF, itself a 'fetishized'and mythologized object, it did. That the movie depicted the members of the RAF as somewhat 'de-politicized', bored kids who simply wanted to have some thrill in their lives, was another problem, and itself also historically inaccurate, regarding the POLITICAL mission they considered themselves to be on and the many writings Meinhof and others published during their lifetimes (which are never mentioned in the movie). Not historically inaccurate, but very unlikely is the soundtrack. In the movie, the RAF members allegedly listened to Can. Everyone with a little knowledge of the German Krautrock scene and its aesthetic will find that connection unfortunate. Also the confined abilities of the actors (the late Gehring was usually great, but this role must have overwhelmed him) and the failure of the screenplay to deliver moments of suspense or drama contributed to its weakness.
Review of Baader
