Rheingold

The brilliant German director Fatih Akin (In the Fade, The Golden Glove) has made an epic gangster magnum opus about the famous rapper Xatar. The film immediately draws the audience into the plot as it begins in the Middle East, with imprisonment, torture, a birth in a cave, bombings, murder at an opera house, and the family's escape from Iraq to Europe. The first half hour is definitely intense, but the following developments don't lag. We watch little Giwar Hajabi grow up, become a small-time pot dealer, and when he gets his ass kicked by a local child gang, he decides to take revenge on them. He finds the biggest guy at the gym, asks to workout with him, and soon becomes the biggest dude in town, picking off the scumbags one by one and giving them a nice thrashing. A nicely conceived biographical gangster drama from zero to peak, just the way I like it. Jesse Albert gives a very convincing performance – the badass role suits him. There are some decently intense and raw scenes and the gold heist is really suspenseful and incredibly paced. The ending even moved me to tears, and overall the film is fast-paced and incredibly entertaining. I haven't been this hooked that I didn't notice my surroundings for a while and that's how I know a good film. 8.5/10 (25/05/2023)