Schutzengel

Chuck Norris is an inferior rip-off of Til Schweiger. Although Chuck Norris started his career before Til Schweiger. But then Til Schweiger decided to change the course of time itself. So there.

What Til and Chuck do have in common, though, is that they both can be entertaining actors, for those good, old kick-back-with-a-beer movies that you shouldn't mention when you're trying to impress a classy chick. They serve, they entertain, they kick ass. However, they don't possess the powers of irony. If you let them produce, write, direct, act and cast their own daughter, then you're in for a long, dark ride. While he was at it, Til Schweiger might as well have called this movie "Til Schweiger Saves The World And All Chicks Want Him". As it was, he strangely limited himself to "Guardian Angel". But the action scenes are a lot of fun. Five mercenaries with automatic rifles blaze into a room with Til Schweiger in it. An unequal fight ensues, and a bad day for the mercenaries begins. Til tilts his gat gangsta style and wastes them all while bullets, plaster and human debris swirl through the air in slo-motion like birds through the rain-forest in Powanisqatsi. Beautiful to watch. My advice would be to simply fast forward to the next, beautifully photographed action scene. Because when the last bad guy has been wasted, Til Schweiger begins to talk, and that means serving up platitudes with a tightened jawbone. If you save another soldier's life, you see, you get a friendship bracelet. And Til could wear a different friendship bracelet "every day of the week". That made me worry about the Bundeswehr.

With a more ironic script, this movie would have been enjoyable in a dumb way. As it is, it's a potpourri of Hollywood action movies from the last 30 years.

I must recognize that the photography, the camera work and the music is nice, but I found the story very disappointing. I find the film full of unnecessary violence, like if if the bullets where the message and not just a tool in the story. The actions scenes are just too long, but they don t get to be shocking, nor caricatures.

The plot, supposedly happening in Germany, lacks credibility. The story follows the same universal patterns from any action history (villains, corrupt official, reluctant heroes), but it really insist on jumping into the German over and over again, so in that sense it should be a story more coherent with how life, crime, violence and military life is in that country. The characters, the dialogs and the action scenes really show like they tried just too hard to look like an American movie.

There is also not a true conflict and the villains lack of good acting or deep personalities. Dialogues are predictable, as the characters dilemmas. I was expecting an stronger antagonist, but instead of that , the screenwriter opted for giving more space to secondary characters.

Despite that, I must also recognize that Til Schweiger acting is good and Moritz Bleibtreu is an excellent actor and his character really good. At the end, is not gonna compete against the great drama-action movies, but is a good movie to have some fun and practice German.

A powerful man kills a young guy; but his young orphan girlfriend witness everything. The witness must be kill. An ex-soldier protects the girl. Looks like a typical action movie but it is not exact;u that.

There very violent shootouts scenes and body count in the hundreds; but also overlong dramatic scenes with others probably oversweet for its own good; but however the movie works. Even when 10 to 15 trimming will make it almost perfect; you cannot stop watching it.

Til Schweiger (who also directs and produce) is more a tormented man than a killer machine. He can carry the movie easily; but Moritz Bleibtreu is who really steal the movie even in a very short part.

Luna Schweiger (Til's real life daughter ) is quite credible as the girl; but we never see her as a truly rebel as originally depicted.

In brief; it is not a great movie; but not a "macho" movie either. You can see with your wife and she will enjoyed too.

Another reviewer wrote that Til S. knows what he's doing. And I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about the fact, that he's casting his daughter in every movie he's in (German movie that is), the last couple of years. Will Smith seems to be doing the same thing in America, so you can't blame him for that. You also should consider the sound effects and the way the action scenes are shot. He knows how to copy Hollywood and make it believable in a German setting (movie wise that is, not that this is close to any reality in Germany).

But when it comes to story and character, this is as weak as they come. Casting Moritz Bleibtreu in this seems almost unnecessary. Not casting actual action performers from Germany is a real omission (Mathis Landwehr to name one!)! Acting also doesn't help, especially Schweigers daughter is off (but if you've seen the other movies you knew that). That won't change the fact, that anything Schweiger touches turns into gold (or at least German box office gold)

The man (Schweiger) does good work. I would describe it as an action thriller with some typical schweiger-ish sweetness added. The audience gets both impressive action and quiet scenes that change the pace of the movie. I think the mix works. The story is pretty simple and we never have to guess who the villain is. (Much like a Luc Besson movie. Black and white.) This is what I liked about the movie:

One. The cinematography is just beautiful. Carefully filmed scenes with strong (for lack of a better word:) audio effects. Well, it sounds great when people shoot. You'll notice.

Two. The heroes and villains reload their guns and the hero doesn't hit every target with every shot. A trivial detail? Not for me. I hate it when people fire 30 shots with a 15-round clip. Or if their shotguns magically fire 16 times. Thank you Til Schweiger for taking the time to reload! You are one of the few.

Three. The action doesn't try to come off as super cool. We don't see any of that stupid rolling-on-the-floor-while-shooting, jumping-behind-a-couch-in-slow-motion-for-effect, cheesy one-liners, showy re-loadings, bourne-identity-grade-fighting-scenes (everybody is a black belt these days) or cars-exploding-(for no reason)-after-being-shot-at!

Do you know what I mean? 8 is maybe too generous, but a 6 would be too low. Watch it and decide for yourself.