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a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

OK, I've read the other reviews for this film (there's eight on this board as I write mine), and no one brought up the way this thing ended. I got the impression that the whole story was a dream by the picture's leading lady, Vera Tschechowa. That tends to put me in a surly mood, because I hate investing my time in a flick if it's going to turn out to be a non-story. So am I missing something here? My summary line by the way, comes from the guy who owned the decrepit mansion in the woods where Cris (Rutger Hauer) and Corinna (Tschechowa) hung out while the gangsters were moving in. I didn't catch his name, so take your pick, he's either the guy who plays Franz or Man in the credits. It doesn't make much difference. You know, I wasn't fooled for a second, I knew that Boss Himmel (Horst Frank) would make a comeback after being stabbed and dumped by the side of the road earlier in the picture. The guy must have had amazing recuperative powers after taking that hit to the lung, he fought like a trooper. I guess that didn't bother him a bit, just like Cris/Blondi was none the worse for wear after having the bullet from his shoulder removed.Anyway, the film was OK for a couple of good throwaway lines, like "The sky knows no frontiers" and "A fox never sleeps, he only catnaps". Those must be German expressions I never heard before. Here's another one I just made up - Beware of empty suitcases.

A sinister German sports pilot is getting a job by a gang of smugglers to fly some millions of Marks abroad but tries to escape with the money on his own. Now the gangsters are chasing him and an innocent female eyewitness through the woods.The plot of this German 1974 production sounds so old-fashioned as the film really is - just boring. In the beginning, the action is nearly non-existent, the pacing is just dumb and uninteresting, and only in the second half of the movie, when you're possibly waking up again and trying to get hold of what it's all about.... Ralf Gregan's direction and Michael Ballhaus' photography are missing everything you're expecting from a simply crime thriller, and it's no wonder that the German cinema of the seventies was no highlight at all except for stupid sex comedies and boring art house student films with no space left for well-made mainstream entertainment.There is also some sex and crime involved, notably a hot sex scene between Dutch main actor Rutger Hauer of later Hollywood fame (Blade Runner, Hitcher, Flesh and Blood etc.) and sexy Vera Tschechowa. Especially in the end during the fight between Hauer (ridiculously named "Blondi" here) and the gangster boss, German b-movie standard villain Horst Frank, lots of blood and guts are all around (although these scenes are badly edited in later TV screenings).You will wonder how such actors became involved in such a boring stuff. Other notable supporting actors are Bavarian star actor Walter Sedlmayer (who gets beaten to death like in his real life later on during a spectacular homosexual killing affair), "Tatort" detective Walter Richter and Edgar-Wallace-movie veteran Gunther Stoll. The movie was mainly filmed in the Black Forest woods and some private houses which gives him a really cheap and home-made touch. And nobody really knows what the "Amulett des Todes" (the bracelet of death), worn by lovely looking Vera Tschechowa, really stands for... probably a touch of horror which cannot save the movie at all.O.K., enough words for such a boring movie, but if you get the occasion to watch this film in groovy seventies fashion and hair styles with its driving Moog synthesizer score and some famous European actors in some of their worst roles just do it once and forget it afterwards!

Caught this on late night television one time. ITV used to show (badly) dubbed European (usually French or German) films at 1 in the morning. Some were good, like the Jean Paul Belmondo films. Some were bad, like this one.Even with Rutger Hauer, this isn't worth watching. The awful dubbing doesn't help, but this is still another Euro cheapie. Stick to Hauer's Dutch stuff with Paul Verhoeven if you want to catch him in good roles pre-America.

One of several early European films US distributers released in order to exploit Hauer's stardom during the eighties. This one is especially hard to find, but could pop up anywhere at random. If it does don't bother, despite your curiosity of seeing a young dashing Hauer. The plot has the standard morally impaired Hauer ripping off his employers, only to be tracked down by them. He falls in love with a rural beauty and wears a trenchcoat (eventually a trademark.) Ambiguity in the performances (Hauer seems bored when he should be getting intense) plot, ending all make this a waste of time and effort. The muddy dubbing certainly doesn't help.