"Fritz Lang" is a German movie from 2016 that runs for 105 minutes approximately and the title already tells you what this film written and directed by Gordian Maugg is about: Fritz Lang, the man that is still considered by many the best German filmmaker of all time and looking at big names like Herzog, Fassbinder, Wenders or many others, this is quite a decent statement. And you can certainly make a point for him, even if he is probably not my personal choice. But not Lang is in the focus today, but Heino Ferch's Lang and this movie of course. First of all, this is a black-and-white film. It is a creative decision to some extent too, but honestly, it is much more of a practical to show us when this film is set, namely around the year 1930, even before Hitler was in power. The (lack of) color is one positive aspect here. Another positive aspect is the idea to focus on a specific time in Lang's career, which means this is not a biopic at all as the other reviewer stated incorrectly. The Nazi years, Lang's later career years, his silent film career, all of this is only vaguely referenced in here, if at all. The focus here is on Lang making the movie "M", probably his second most famous today after "Metropolis" and how he tried to get as close as possible to an actual serial killed (Kürten) that inspired him for Peter Lorre's character and helped him as well in making a successful transition from silent film to sound film.
But apart from what I just mentioned the negative is much more frequent than the positive. No offense to Heino Ferch, but the fact that he is not the strongest actor is often tried to conceal with the help of something I would call alpha male scenes. This means there is a lot of sex in here, some gun shots as well, graphic scenes with murder too. This is of course somewhat accurate because after all this film is about a serial killer, but it all felt too much in the face I think and just for the sake of it. Subtlety is something this film really really would have needed as I felt the initial premise here was decent and this could have been a really good film with better execution. Maybe another lead actor would have been good too. I personally like Thomas Thieme and I think he is a talented actor and a personal favorite, so I cannot say anything about him and I also think Samuel Finzi was okay as the serial killer, but the film loses itself at times because it looks as if Ferch's character is some kind of police inspector with his constant premise and his connection to film (actually the very core of it all) feels a bit lost at times. I hope that the production of this film will not result in the possibility of another Lang movie not coming out for a long time, so maybe it is a good thing that the focus in here is so specific on such a little period of time, so maybe we get a real biopic some time soon. Fritz Lang definitely deserves it and his life was certainly interestingly enough to tell a convincing and dramatic story. But back to this one here. Like I described earlier, it is not a failure, but the bad outweighs the good and I don#t recommend checking it out. Quite a pity.
But apart from what I just mentioned the negative is much more frequent than the positive. No offense to Heino Ferch, but the fact that he is not the strongest actor is often tried to conceal with the help of something I would call alpha male scenes. This means there is a lot of sex in here, some gun shots as well, graphic scenes with murder too. This is of course somewhat accurate because after all this film is about a serial killer, but it all felt too much in the face I think and just for the sake of it. Subtlety is something this film really really would have needed as I felt the initial premise here was decent and this could have been a really good film with better execution. Maybe another lead actor would have been good too. I personally like Thomas Thieme and I think he is a talented actor and a personal favorite, so I cannot say anything about him and I also think Samuel Finzi was okay as the serial killer, but the film loses itself at times because it looks as if Ferch's character is some kind of police inspector with his constant premise and his connection to film (actually the very core of it all) feels a bit lost at times. I hope that the production of this film will not result in the possibility of another Lang movie not coming out for a long time, so maybe it is a good thing that the focus in here is so specific on such a little period of time, so maybe we get a real biopic some time soon. Fritz Lang definitely deserves it and his life was certainly interestingly enough to tell a convincing and dramatic story. But back to this one here. Like I described earlier, it is not a failure, but the bad outweighs the good and I don#t recommend checking it out. Quite a pity.