saugoof

I'm really surprised by the low scores and bad reviews this movie gets here. Granted, this movie is not perfect. It is complex, quite slow, not all that easy to follow and its basic plot is nothing world-shattering. But it is also executed very well, visually stunning, has great performances, creates a very unique world and is intriguing throughout.

The main story is about a technophobe bartender, mute after a boating accident when he was a kid, who is trying to find his missing girlfriend. The futuristic Berlin, setting of the movie, is very reminiscent of Blade Runner Los Angeles. It is almost permanently night time, populated by highly eccentric people from all corners of the world and everyone appears to be involved in a criminal scheme of one type or another.

There are basically no good characters, just varying shades of grey, probably one of the reasons for the bad scores this movie gets. The few nice people here do bad things, the bad people have some redeeming qualities, even the ones that look on the surface like cartoon villains.

This is the sort of film that you basically have to watch more than once, it is not easy to keep track of what is happening and much of it may not make sense on first viewing. But it is far, far better than the low IMDB score would suggest.

Reading the reviews of this show here on IMDb, it's clear that a troll army has set its sights on it. The same people who love to throw terms like "Snowflake" around are not exactly thick-skinned.

Ignore them, this show is far better than they'd want to make you believe. I'm only six episodes in so far but there have been a few absolutely terrific episodes. I was a bit Luke-warm after the first episode which centred on Sam who probably comes closest to being a bit of a stereotypical and poorly written character. Although she is revealed to have a lot more depth and complexity in later episodes. But that first episode left me intrigued enough to keep watching. Episode two then got me totally hooked. This one centred on Lionel, the nerdish journalist who is a far more interesting character. Subsequent episodes brought out the rest of the ensemble and even characters who appear horrendously shallow at first, like Troy, Coco or Reggie show a surprising depth when given more of a stage.

Each episode centres on a different main character and they all end up revealing personalities that are not at all like we had first assumed. There is some terrific writing here which generally overcomes the occasional hackneyed set-ups.

My only criticism is that every single person here looks impossibly beautiful, is model-styled and wears clothes that would send the average millionaire bankrupt. That's not what college looks like.