Le clown: le film

I love both Eva Habermann and Xenia Seeberg for their incredible performances in immortal Lexx Series. But here I was so badly shocked and so much disappointed that no words can come in. The plot is a real obvious silliness - bad guys, Xenia is among them, are always plotting some bad actions, only to steal some big chunk of gold from some place. Good guys, including Eva and some mystical Der Clown, as a modern day Robin Hood, always hinder them on doing that. There are many cars exploded, some helicopters, some airplanes, some cycles, some bombs, some more... It all looks like a cheap remake f some Commando or Rambo films, only with poor play and cheap budget. Xenis does not play, she only makes effective poses and shows her legs galore. Eva is better by a hair width, she is always cool but then frightened and brave. I say, this is a brainless, light weight ditty, not a serious thought behind. Do not waste your time on that. But it is good for laughs.

I like to agree with Markus Schnitzler , it's a rock-solid action movie, made to watch just for fun, not to consider the worlds biggest problems ! The stunts are incredible, cars and motorcycles of course, but helicopters, and not only one, they crash 2 and just an airplane too.

And I like the split-screens too, they look good and they can give you a lot of information in a short time and the story rolls on.

Of course the story is not the best , I've ever seen, but it is so far OK, cause you don't go there to ask for logic and depth, right ?

If you like fast and breathless action, here you can get it ! It is certainly worth a try :-)

Who the heck visits a movie spin-off of a German trash TV-Series and doesn't know what to expect? This film was great: funny lines, great stunts, simple story. It delivered exactly, what I needed! In fact, it was like a double feature of the show with more budget. Well, the director seems to be a little bit "over-talented", but in the end, it was a great fun to watch this movie. The acting was OK, the only downside was the replacement of Diana Frank as Claudia Diel. The movie would have worked the same way with the original team and I'm not sure, why they replaced her with Eva Habermann. Maybe it was because off age or money, I don't know.

But whoever came up with this crap? The series had more action, more funny lines, and a packed story altogether. The effects are crappier than I've ever seen before. Take the shot with the lorry that's being rocketed - you clearly see a dummy driving. Or the shot where a car passes a tram, it's clearly computer generated.

Might not be that bad, but untrue characters that do really stupid moves, it might have been acceptable at the beginning of cinema.

And then the soundtrack. After practically every scene a bit of English or German noise has to be added. Why, is it a musical or what?

Really awful and unbelievable. We've seen many events in other movies before, and a lot better. I loved Kommissar Rex, Derrick, Der Alte, Der Klown, but this is major C*R*A*P!

I saw this film right on the day it opened in a large theater and even though I wasn't familiar with the original German TV Series I at least expected decent action entertainment and hoped to experience some two hours of fun and adrenaline.

But even my lowest expectations were completely shattered. DER CLOWN is a vintage cinematic failure - which rates even more painful, as it is conceived to be the first cinema released film of the newly formed cinema division of Germany's production company ACTION CONCEPT.

This is even more lamentable, as the film presents its assets in a very loose and disadvantageous manner: even though it contains some extremely strong elaborate stunts, explosions (of choppers, cars and even entire planes) and shootouts, which certainly would be worthy of a true Hollywood action production, these supposed assets are not presented as eye candy at all. The actions sequences are framed and edited in a dull way, making them look average, boring and uninspired. The blown up 16mm to 35mm image on the screen looks awfully cheap, the ongoing use of grand camera moves and particularly the frequent split screens pretending some artistic merits are just annoying and do make no sense at all!

But it's not only the failure of technical aspects, which ads up to me feeling FÜR DUMM VERKAUFT at the end of the screening. The actors, the storyline and the governing VISION of this project seem to be dis comfortably stuck in the feeling of average German 90s television bonanza (no matter how successful it must have been at its time) - and this doesn't add a sense of missing aura and charming feel to the flick...

And finally: the producers really ought to be warned for their slated upcoming productions: if you tailor you next films after this model DON'T EVER ATTACH THE KIND OF CREDITS WITH FEELGOOD BACKSTAGE FOOTAGE AND BLOPPERS ... it's simply downright embarrassing, period (I had to cover my eyes).

Finally I really have to mention, that the best experience of this very evening was the preceding trailer of the upcoming film KAMPFANSAGE (an ACTION CONCEPT CINEMA production as well), which appears to be far more satisfying and in terms of story, look, style, music, characters, acting and directing. And I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

Rumors have it, that this guerrilla like film has been produced on a tight, little budget of EUR 300,000. Now, if there are guys who can make a supposedly appealing feature for such a tiny budget, why are other people of even the same production company (!) entirely unable to end up with something witty and gripping for an estimated budget of 8 billion Euros? That's a Gordian knot I haven't been able to untie yet...

A true and newly born German entertainment cinema is certainly about to appear on the spotlight - but DER CLOWN dosen't belong to it (... at least, that is what I hope!)

... I rated it 3 lame stars for some whacky pyrotechnics and for the hyped-up lips of German I-wanna-be-a great-star Xenia Seeberg ...