"Die Klasse von '99 - Schule war gestern, Leben ist jetzt" or just "90/99" is a German 90-minute movie from 2003, so this one will have its 15th anniversary next year, and this one is written and directed by Marco Petry. He made this three years after his trademark film "Schule" and officially, this one here is even considered a sequel I believe. However, I don't see any great connections here. Not even Axel Stein, pretty much the only one appearing in both films, takes up his character from the first film. So I guess the "sequel connection" is that the previous film shows us the final days of school while this one here shows us what happens afterward, such as post-school education with the central character here trying to become a police officer. He is played by Matthias Schweighöfer who is definitely a bigger star today than he was back then when this film was made. And while I am usually being pretty harsh on him, he wasn't all bad in here. Then again it helped certainly that he didn't have a stupid romantic pseudo-dramatic story line this time and that it certainly isn't too big a challenge to shine next to the likes of Tim Sander (GZSZ) and Axel Stein (Hausmeister Krause). I still won't say it was a good or even great performance, but it is on par with the script, sometimes fine, at other moments forgettable. It also didn't seem as forced and try-hard as Schweighöfer's recent stuff or we could even say "stuff from the last decade", so maybe he should try this approach again today. Story-wise, it's a tolerable movie. With the death of one character, it seems a bit dramatic for the sake of it and honestly the part, which is at the very core, about an aspiring police officer smuggling drugs is so absurd that you just cannot like the main character because of his stupidity. And the explanation that his tendency to go criminal is already an indicator for the police not being the right path for him on a professional level is not satisfying in my opinion. But there were also better moments like the romance story in the second half of the film admittedly, so this film as a whole is not a failure. But it also isn't on a level where I would recommend it, only because it is better than "Schule" which is gigantic garbage from start to finish. Reading the cast list for this sequel, I was expecting the worst, but the outcome was definitely not as bad as I feared. Still I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
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