Sadly Over-hyped

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The begenning of the movie looks as dark and gloomy as the inside of my head; very crowded with no sound at all. I hated how the movie started with a political argument, which I disagree with, about how rebellions (Hamas) considered as terrorists just because they choose to defend their country. It sounds like an irrelevant comment but so was it in the movie. Right? I have been literally holding my breath all through the movie that I thought I was going to die of supspense at any moment. The end (the escape scene) though should have been told in details. It left me wondering how could the student unlock the door for Clair.

Clare is an Australian tourist just arriving in Berlin. She's quiet, passive, dull, but smiles a lot. Her first night she drinks on the roof top of her hostel with some people. She's mainly there to take photographs of DDR architecture/life. Next day she meets a guy and they get along well. He shows her around seems to be attracted to her but is reluctant to take things further. On the second day they meet he's not reluctant anymore. He takes her to his place. Next day she wakes up to discover she can't get out. The guy returns and claims to have left the key somewhere. Next day same thing. She's looked up again. She tries to make a call but her SIM card is missing from her phone. He doesn't have much to say to his captive rather pretends she's his girlfriend and this is business as usual.Clare in her passivity doesn't really make any serious attempts at escape or attack. The apartment they're in is in some empty complex. The window are reinforced so she can't do much but break the first glass layer. Even though the apartment is fully furnished there isn't much she can use in terms of tools or weapons. Days and days go by. He's a gym teacher at a school, one student gets interested in him and visits the place, but even then Clare obediently stays quiet and put. His dad is a professor and dies at some point. We don't even know how much time goes by in the movie. Clare goes between weirdly adapting to her captive girlfriend status to occasionally going on the offensive. He brings her the dad's dog and after she gets attached to it he gets rid of it. He takes her out in the Winter but again she only makes a half-baked attempt at getting out of this situation. After nears two hours of this we learn whether Clare can escape or not.Berlin Syndrome is one slow, boring, uninteresting, long, and pointless movie. As is standard of Hollywood movies and "artsy" movies as well these days, little is said. And of course, as little happens, all you're left to do is watch this thing unfold in slow-motion. That this movie is based on a book doesn't make it any better. Thy try to make something about books and art. But it doesn't amount to much. We learn little about this guy, other than he can't stand his mother, so maybe something went on there. The lovely Teresa Palmer for some reason is made to look much less lovely without eyebrows. So there's not even much to see in that regard, although there is a bit of nudity which earns this movie 2 stars. Otherwise there nothing to see here. Had they trimmed this to 1 hour and 20 minutes, made Teresa to look good, added some more characters, they could have had a decent mediocre movie.

Based on the book of the same name. A thriller-drama from Australia, from the director of the WWII film, 'Lore'. The story of an Aussie backpacker who meets a local man in Berlin and then they end up in the bed. As one and two days go on, she finally comes to realise that she got held up. Locked-in by him in an isolated building, she fights back, but not enough to break out free. What happens then, can she get out of there alive is what focused on the remaining parts.I think it was an okayish film. Because it was like one sided narration. She remained a mystery, but the bad guy was thoroughly detailed. Too much drama, I meant slow drama. That's not the issue, nearly two hours long narrative was. There's nothing much happens. Kind of drags to kill time. Especially the father-son relationship. And finally, the end was decent, but the way it happened was not quite convincing. Because of possibilities. People can do intelligently, differently, but what they have shown in this flick was too crazy and risky thing, unless it takes place in a country where laws have less effect. So overall a watchable film, not bad as a very few says.6/10

Berlin Syndrome is a psychological thriller. The location is Berlin as the title shows. So there is a bit of German language but not that much. The movie tells the story of a freak that actually looks perfectly normal and that what makes it creepy, a guy that holds an Australian tourist hostage in his remote apartment. A story like this would be very surprising fifty years ago but now we got already multiple examples in real life of such kind of deranged people. So it wasn't a big surprise or something new. Nevertheless the story might start slow, the rest of the movie is full of suspense. The suspense is mostly psychological bit it definitely works. The acting is good, and that from the whole cast. Maybe it could have had a bit more action, but than again I don't think it was very necessary. I didn't get bored at all and I'm sure you won't be either.