"Letzte Ausfahrt Sauerland", which means "Last exit Sauerland" is a German television film from 2015, so this one has its fifth anniversary this year and as it premiered back in May 2015, it happened already. Like most other small screen releases from my country, this runs for 1.5 hours. The director is Nikolai Müllerschön and looking at how he has been making films since the early 80s, it is definitely safe to say that he is fairly experienced and he has also worked on some big screen releases, so expectations for this film could be higher, even if it must be said that some of these big screen releases were also fairly weak overall. The exact same description applies to one of the two writers here. Has worked on theatrical releases, but the outcome was not necessarily good there. The second writer, however, there is nothing positive I can say really, except that it is good he has not been too prolific because almost everything he worked on was extremely weak. Still I find it always a bit shocking when two people work on a screenplay and the outcome is such a mess nonetheless because you'd expect that they could find each other's flaws and mistakes, but it seems they just brought each other further down. As for the cast, it is debatable if it is better. Heiner lauterbach is of course somebody most German film fans will recognize immediately, the name and face because of his successful past, but I personally feel that he is all about recognition value and not really about range unfortunately either. Still his popularity is always easily enough to attract a bit of an audience and also other somewhat known (or at least experienced) cast members. Here we have only one and that would be Friedrich von Thun, although again I must say he is one who is more about recognition value and his extremely long career and vast experience than truly about versatlity like Götz george for example had at his age. The rest of the cast I am not familiar with I must say. I think Messutat I have heard before, but cannot really associate anything. Emilio Sakraya, the young actor at the center of the story, has really enjoyed a breakthrough over the last couple years and been in some prestigious projects, but I must say from what I saw here, I am not buying the hype at all. He was pretty bad and each time his character required some emotional impact or a challenging moment range-wise he came painfully short and his line delivery was also extremely wooden, like with how he turned simple proverbs into emotional references about his father not having taken the responsbility and instead neglected him for years.
So i am already a bit into the plot here. I do not wannt to go too much into detail here about the story, but overall it felt rather shallow and unauthentic to me I must say. Instead, i would like to elaborate on some specific scenes and moments from the screenplay that turned this into a rather weak watch in my humble opinion. First of all, the title is nothing I am too hapy about, not only because he kinda spoils the (still slightly unexpected) ending a bit, but also because it sounds rather clumsy and honestly if they put the "Sauerland" in such a crucial way in the film's title, then I would have expected the region at least play a slightly significant role here. The way regions play a role in these many recent German films that are a mix of crime and some comedy and humor, usually dark humor. There it is handled nicely, here not all. This could have been set in almost every other region in Germany. And they actually had the opportunity to deliver there because it is a road movie and there are many different locations in here. But there is no emphasis and elaboration in those whatsoever. Admittedly, I was glad to hear some Johnny Cash songs here and there, actually numbers that I was not familiar with and I know a lot from him, so this is one of really not many positive aspects about this film, but then again it is nothing original either. Lauterbach and von Thun did not have a whole lot of chemistry either and their scenes were not half as good as they could have been. And their argument also felt scripted as a consequence. This is maybe the film's biggest problem. Hardly anything feels real and authentic and yet you feel that the movie takes itself so seriously from beginning to end that it all came off as very rusty. And that is normally the worst if you feel the filmmakers (and cast) here give off the impression that they are delivering something truly meaningful and deep, but the truth is the opposite because the talent to make such a challenging, maybe even inspiring, story work is not there. And it is not only not there, but also on the other end of the scale. Admittedly, I have seen many worse afternoon films here on the small screen, German television releases, but this is just because they are that horrible and this one here is "only" bad. ARD Degeto is almost always though a guarantee for lack of quality. The protagonist's death at the end is something they usually don't, so nice for a change, but even this got botched really. The moment we find out during this phone conversation between the mother and the friend was still okay, but with the pretentious letter that was supposed to deliver a sort-of happy ending, things go south fairly quickly immediately afterwards. I guess if you have a big screen/name actor (still?) like Lauterbach at your disposal, you have to come up with something else than the parents becoming an item again. His bruteness and masculinity (like when he talks to his ex's new man) that he has in all his films was still among the better aspects, but really only again because everything else was so bad. Also sometimes it felt pretty absurd, like let's take the son and how he is initially 100% against spending time with his dad and letting him back into his life again, but not much later he even asks his mother if he could spend time with them again. Sigh. As for Lauterbach, like I implied, he has a tendency to play really identical characters (or at least very similar ones) in the movies he is in and has been in for a long time and that is what I meant with how he does not really have too much range either. At least not to an extent where he should still be considered one of Germany's best actors. Or most known I should say maybe because that he is definitely. Alright, that would be all then. I wanted to like this film at least a little but, but it is virtually impossible. It is just too weak from almost every perspective. The worst of it all is maybe Sakkraya's game-changing (in a negative sense) performance. With a better younger actor there, I maybe could have given two stars out of five and not two stars out of ten. Highly not recommended. Watch something else instead!
So i am already a bit into the plot here. I do not wannt to go too much into detail here about the story, but overall it felt rather shallow and unauthentic to me I must say. Instead, i would like to elaborate on some specific scenes and moments from the screenplay that turned this into a rather weak watch in my humble opinion. First of all, the title is nothing I am too hapy about, not only because he kinda spoils the (still slightly unexpected) ending a bit, but also because it sounds rather clumsy and honestly if they put the "Sauerland" in such a crucial way in the film's title, then I would have expected the region at least play a slightly significant role here. The way regions play a role in these many recent German films that are a mix of crime and some comedy and humor, usually dark humor. There it is handled nicely, here not all. This could have been set in almost every other region in Germany. And they actually had the opportunity to deliver there because it is a road movie and there are many different locations in here. But there is no emphasis and elaboration in those whatsoever. Admittedly, I was glad to hear some Johnny Cash songs here and there, actually numbers that I was not familiar with and I know a lot from him, so this is one of really not many positive aspects about this film, but then again it is nothing original either. Lauterbach and von Thun did not have a whole lot of chemistry either and their scenes were not half as good as they could have been. And their argument also felt scripted as a consequence. This is maybe the film's biggest problem. Hardly anything feels real and authentic and yet you feel that the movie takes itself so seriously from beginning to end that it all came off as very rusty. And that is normally the worst if you feel the filmmakers (and cast) here give off the impression that they are delivering something truly meaningful and deep, but the truth is the opposite because the talent to make such a challenging, maybe even inspiring, story work is not there. And it is not only not there, but also on the other end of the scale. Admittedly, I have seen many worse afternoon films here on the small screen, German television releases, but this is just because they are that horrible and this one here is "only" bad. ARD Degeto is almost always though a guarantee for lack of quality. The protagonist's death at the end is something they usually don't, so nice for a change, but even this got botched really. The moment we find out during this phone conversation between the mother and the friend was still okay, but with the pretentious letter that was supposed to deliver a sort-of happy ending, things go south fairly quickly immediately afterwards. I guess if you have a big screen/name actor (still?) like Lauterbach at your disposal, you have to come up with something else than the parents becoming an item again. His bruteness and masculinity (like when he talks to his ex's new man) that he has in all his films was still among the better aspects, but really only again because everything else was so bad. Also sometimes it felt pretty absurd, like let's take the son and how he is initially 100% against spending time with his dad and letting him back into his life again, but not much later he even asks his mother if he could spend time with them again. Sigh. As for Lauterbach, like I implied, he has a tendency to play really identical characters (or at least very similar ones) in the movies he is in and has been in for a long time and that is what I meant with how he does not really have too much range either. At least not to an extent where he should still be considered one of Germany's best actors. Or most known I should say maybe because that he is definitely. Alright, that would be all then. I wanted to like this film at least a little but, but it is virtually impossible. It is just too weak from almost every perspective. The worst of it all is maybe Sakkraya's game-changing (in a negative sense) performance. With a better younger actor there, I maybe could have given two stars out of five and not two stars out of ten. Highly not recommended. Watch something else instead!
