Afouotos
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Kaydan Christian
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Schutzengel" or "Better Angel" or "Guardian Angel" is a 2012 movie directed by, written by and starring Til Schweiger. He made this one between the two "Kokowääh" movies. And while Emma Schweiger is the star of these, Til's other daughter Luna is the star here. And even if she is considerably older, she is still the less talented one. I liked how they took the spice out of a scene when his daughter asked him if he would stay with her for the night by including a smelly feet joke afterward. But obviously, she is not his daughter in the movie. Also she is by far not the only Schweiger family member in "Schutzengel". The main antagonist is played by Heiner Lauterbach, but it is really nothing he has not shown before already. I liked the guy who played his lawyer early on. Nice performance. Schweiger himself does not appear until minute 15 roughly, but that's not a problem as the movie runs for considerably longer then two hours. The rest of the cast is known too: Axel Stein, Hannah Herzsprung, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Katharina Schüttler, Rainer Bock and Karoline Schuch support Schweiger and his daughter. Quite a few of them are killed by the villains, so we won't forget who the real hero is. Bleibtreu's encounter with the villain was pretty good, but everything else about him before that was stereotypical and forgettable. The very first attack (including Herzsprung's character) reminded me a bit of Léon with Jean Reno.It's a bit refreshing to see Schweiger in something other than a romantic comedy with drama aspects this time (he usually covers the action thriller genre in American productions), but sadly it gets old fairly quickly and the second half is worse than the first. They easily could have held that film around the 100-minute mark and deleted a couple of the less significant scenes. At the very end, it seems like they are not even trying anymore when Schweiger talks some poetic nonsense and we don't see how he kills all the villains afterward. Maybe the filmmakers thought that we have already had enough gun action and they were actually right. Sadly, this ending is not good at all either. Box-office-wise, this film was not as much of a hit as Schweiger's other works behind the camera, but that is probably not the biggest surprise as the whole topic of protecting a witness is not as family friendly as his other stuff. And apart from that, the film also has a handful more weaknesses in terms of the story. For example, it's so random and unrealistic that he, all of a sudden, runs into his ex-girlfriend who is the public prosecutor in this case. Or Luna Schweiger's silent scream at the end is pretty bad as she has no clue at all what is going on exactly with her protector this very moment. Or did they have an invisible bond all of a sudden? I don't think so. The worst, most cringeworthy moment, however, was "Don't f*ck with the wrong people!" Not the first time, a random English quote appears all of a sudden in a Schweiger movie and so far it has always been laughable, even if it may fit the situation.This film could have been quite a lot of fun if they had not taken themselves so seriously. You could have forgiven them for the unrealistic parts. Sadly, they want you to take this movie seriously and with that approach, it is not a good viewing experience. Not recommended.
Ignacio Mandoble
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.
Karl Self
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.
msmith5484
As an American, I went into this not knowing what to expect. I wasn't disappointed. I'm not thrilled, but not disappointed. Maybe I just don't understand European movie sensibilities (I recently saw Rust and Bone and thought there were pacing and story issues with that).I think Til Schweiger is an engaging actor (he reminds me of Guy Peace) and Karoline Suchuch is beautiful. The film was beautifully shot, it looked great. The plot - policeman protects girl from bad guys - is a staple of the genre and Schutzengel, as another entry in the canon doesn't add much that's new or prevent the next one. It has it's share of clichés: the hero is emotionally withdrawn and former military, the young cop who finds out his wife is pregnant gets killed (immediately), the 'crazy' best friend and the faceless, nameless henchmen who end up as cannon fodder.There are problems. The first being the reason the girl needs protection. She witnesses the killing of a boy by 'the villain' in what I would describe as a tragic accident. The boy sneaks the girl into the Presidential suite of the hotel where he works, she takes a laptop, 'the villain' comes back to the room, the boy and girl hide, 'the villain' notices the laptop missing, his security man comes to investigate and when the boy tries to put the laptop back 'the villain' panics and shoots and kills him. He actually seems quite remorseful when he realizes he's killed the boy. As far as I could tell 'the villain' is the villain because he may have laundered some money and is a arms dealer. A lot is made of the fact this man can own and carry a loaded gun. I guess they really hate guns in Germany though they must love them in movies as there is no actual fighting, all action is done with various handguns, shotguns and machine guns. Another problem is that it's too long at 130 minutes. It could have been cut to @ 90 by removing a sequence in a diner and a stop by the police that really adds nothing to the story.The relationship between the girl and her protector has some moments, but doesn't really build what I consider a substantial bond and I guess there has to be a 'love' relation in the form of the DA trying to prosecute 'the villain' and give us an upbeat ending.One thing that I was surprised to see, that separates this from all other action movies is the hero washing and crying over his best friend who was shot to death.This is not an excellent film but it did give me an interest in seeing what else Til Schweiger has done.
