Ossi's Eleven

Karoline Eichhorn, she can play anything. Even an armored car driver in the middle of nowhere, on the brink of being laid off, looking good. She is the last addition to an ex-convict's team of misfits lined up for a major breaking-and-entering operation. That about sums up the plot. George Clayton Johnson's short story "Ocean's Eleven", first published in 1960, has spawned half a dozen movies to date, ranging from the Rat Pack classic to Steven Soderbergh's third installment of his remake, "Ocean's Thirteen". Writer-director Oliver Mielke's script takes the original plot idea of a gang of resourceful oddballs pulling off a big-time casino heist and replays it against the gloomy backdrop of an Eastern German scrap metal plant. Unfortunately, it's not half quirky as it sounds. The movie has its charms though. The cool soundtrack pays tribute to the story's 1960s origins. Touching performances by Michael Brandner in the part of a suicidal hot dog vendor, and by Manfred Möck as a glum, yet surprisingly sneaky ex-intelligence operative. Solid, if somewhat shallow TV fare. Brandner's character might have been developed as the lead in a more substantial story along the lines of "Schultze Gets the Blues".