Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Germans have a quality wave of movies that reached wold audience in the early 21st century, after the Run Lola Run hit. This movie is perhaps not the best of the best, but is interesting, original and gives a story of one turbulent era with great detail and precision.

I confess an interest. I once worked with the director Uli Edel, who was then attached to my script Crossmaglen. We worked on the script at his house in Los Angeles and he was the perfect host, and clearly an amazing film maker. Unfortunately he eventually parted company with the project. Tonight I saw The Baader Meinhof Complex, which I knew Uli had directed, for the first time.It's a little masterpiece all of its own..contemporary history immortalised. I lived through that period - though not in Germany - and I remember the angst, but not how bloody and violent it all was. The movie itself is utterly gripping and one simply doesn't doubt that you're in the Seventies, from clothes to cars to just mood, furniture, curtains even. It shows in great narrative form the rise of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, why they became what they were - the rather odd sinister West German society of the time, but also pulls no punches in its depiction of the two main players and their acolytes as vain, spoilt and horrendously violent and uncaring individuals. To see them crushed by the prison system, though, is also sobering.The action scenes are just second to none..I've had a live round fired at me and - yes - all concerned duck when being fired at as they do in this film.I end by saying I have no axe to grind or benefit to be gained by posting this review, but I wished to be honest in that I know the director. I haven't seen Uli for five years and have no commercial dealings with him. This is just an incredible film..in its way, on a par with Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers in its significance and its study of urban terrorism. I truly believe that. How this one didn't get the attention and plaudits it deserves since it opened three years ago, is beyond me. But then...I saw it tonight, so who am I to criticise? Just a must see movie. See the damn thing!!!

I easily believe that this film was the most expensive to make judging by the extravagant explosions and violent scenes. The acting, writing, and directing was all worth it. This is one of the best films in years about actual history of a the Red Army Faction better known as the RAF. It all starts innocently with the American country song during Ulrike Meinhorf's vacation with her daughters and husband on a beach somewhere. Is it Germany? I don't remember but I was troubled by the girls who played her daughters who were exposed up front. The film begins with Ulrike's involvement as a left wing journalist and slowly escalates. We realize that her marriage was falling apart. She leaves her husband and takes their daughters. She gets involved with the RAF at first by writing for them but it escalates further. Ulrike's life takes a disturbing turn in order for her to make a better world. The RAF means well but their actions are too violent, illogical, and wrongfully aimed at eve innocent people. This film is well worth watching even if you don't know German. I don't know it myself but it's a powerful tour De force and gripping film to watch at least once in order to understand human history. The actors do a fantastic job in their performances especially the leads and the director did a fantastic job in displaying the history as well. You can't believe it actually happened but it did.

The late 1960's and early 1970's were a turbulent time throughout the world. Protests raged in nearly every major city, against American Imperialism; their occupation of Vietnam, and the middle-east situation, and the fight of the Palestinians; and of course civil rights. In West Germany, Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedek) is a journalist who is disillusioned that her published writing is not effecting change. She begins to get involved in the left-wing politics of the (mostly student) protesters. After discovering that her husband is having an affair, she takes of with their two daughters and joins the 'cause' full-time.Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) are living a pseudo-bohemian lifestyle after being released from prison for arson on a department store. They are also recruiting refugees of the right-wing police state they are living in; political prisoners, and runaways from homes/prisons. On their return to West Germany, Baader and Ensslin stay with Meinhof and she becomes part of the Red Faction Army (RAF). After some Iranian training, they begin a series of bank robberies, then begin bombing German Authorities property and US military sites located throughout Germany. This results in the 'founding members' all being incarcerated. The film proceeds with a trial that is made a mockery of and the growth of the RAF (whilst Baader/Meinhof/Ensslin are imprisoned and falling apart as they break each other down psychologically, bickering) outside, whose violence escalates, and the concern of the 'Innocent by-stander' looses any meaning. This was a massive terrorist campaign that was to be titled German Autumn. It was a few years after the debacle of German authorities, in the handling of the terrorist hostage situation at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and this was an opportunity to show that they have learned from their mistakes, so the response is severe.Directed by Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), Body of Evidence (1993)), displays some of his common themes in the terrorist group. He often parallels sex and violence; how closely entwined the two things often are in reality (but most often in art). The film is at times exciting and thrilling; it represents the facts of the story well without heavy exposition. The characters represent the generation after the end of World War 2. These were the children of the Nazi's. What these people saw in American Imperialism (which we are still living with today), is that it is intrinsically fascistic in it's blind "democratic" view-point of world domination. Perhaps more politically motivated, the characters often become almost incomplete. The RAF were often portrayed quite sympathetically, despite that fact that some of the acts were seemingly motivated with death in mind. In the real event the Baader-Meinhof Gang were almost celebrated by the German people much in the same way that Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde were in the prohibition era America. But apart from the few lags in narrative, this was an entertaining crime drama.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com