I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This almost 10-year-old movie is a definite contender for longest German film in recent years. It easily passes the 150-minute mark and yet manages to drag on only very few occasions. Most of the film is well done and will have you curious about what is gonna happen next. A lot of that is thanks to lead actors Jürgen Vogel and Sabine Timoteo. I also liked Zapatka's performance while I thought Hennicke was fairly forgettable. The film is directed by Matthias Glasner and also written by him with the help of Judith Angerbauer and Vogel himself.Let me say that this is a very graphic movie. Vogel plays a convicted sex offender and in the first 10 minutes we already see how he rapes a young woman. A similar scene happens at the end of the movie and that is by far not everything. No taboos here and the ending is very tough to watch as well. Yet, it never feels that these scenes were just included for the sake of it. They all serve a purpose. Even if we know the main character is a violent monster, we still feel with him and hope he can be cured and will not commit any crimes again, maybe even become happy with Timoteo's character.The movie takes place in Berlin, but as a Berlin resident, I have to say the references were not that big. I only remember a metro station sign. It's all about the question if he can defeat his evil desires and choose love over all the temptation that constantly seems to follow him. My favorite scene is maybe near the end when he realizes what he has done and what is going to happen to him (again) in the bathroom. Maybe the best-acted scene from Vogel's career. In terms of impact, the ending is very important too. I liked how joggers just ran by not realizing the drama that had just taken place. Also the decision of Vogel's character is also a very clever reference to the film's title. I am not sure if I would watch this film anytime soon again, but it I certainly recommend it if you are interested in the subject, appreciate films with little dialog and can deal with the heavy material. Finally, i want to add that I very much liked the way "Ave Maria" was used here.

Ah, the always-magnificent German cinema comes through once more. 2 hours and 43 minutes of stupendous cinema experience is what this movie is.I really can't say whose performance was the greatest: Sabine Timoteo's or Jurgen Vogel's? They were both so rattling in their own way. And the subject of the movie is bold, carelessly blow-to-blow, heartbreaking.This movie has no beauty in it. But that's exactly the beauty in it. There's no poetry in it but it's so poetic. Every close-up, every character panning, every scream. Obsession and addiction and the free will.

I would not like to give a summary of the impulsive scenes or the techniques used in the film. I do refrain from talking about the movie as a logical construction. Anyway, that is exactly what was done at Ludwigshafen's 'Festival des Deutschen Films' - trying to pull the discussion onto a more emotional level, the director himself and the two protagonists failed. which stands for the extreme distance people (and eve the cast) seem to be able to keep having watched the movie. This lets me conclude that the movie, although displaying one part of human life/struggle, was unable to move people's substance.. This is the first movie that made me doubt, if the medium 'movie' can really reach people's core. Not even the realistic display of rape seems to be enough to touch people.

I saw the first screening of this movie on Berlinale this year. I have to say that it is easy to condemn this movie and in the extremely politically correct atmosphere of a movie festival the audience refused to applaud afterwards despite the amazing performance of both Jürgen Vogel and Sabine Timoteo. I don't know whether the refusal to applaud was due to the fact that the audience was still speechless or that the topic is simply to risqué. Probably both.The movie takes the bold step to try to get into the skin of a rapist (Vogel) who has just been released from prison after serving a nine year sentence for sexual assault.Jürgen Vogel conveys the feeling that he is both scared to death of himself and women as he knows that he is not able to master his urge to repeat what brought him into prison. Most people will not want to get this close to one of the most outcast pariahs we have in society - and boy, do we get close. In one memorable and very explicit scene he masturbates as if he wants to rip his penis from his groin. Other scenes show him struggling with himself when he is confronted with women. The film makes it very clear that there is no hope for Theo in this battle against an urge that is too powerful and soon his "free will" leaves the stage and we are invited to see a seemingly endless rape scene that - honestly - got me on the verge of leaving the theater. It's slightly reminiscent of the ugliness of Henry - portrait of a serial killer.Where most directors would now offer some psychology-101-explanation as to what turned Theo into such a hideous monster in order to give the audience some sort of rationalization of the horror on-screen Mathias Glasner does no such thing. Instead Theo is even allowed to fall in love with Nettie (telling-name, nett means nice), but it's not hard to guess that they are not going to have a pair of twins and marry in the end.What makes this movie so difficult to digest is the fact that its premise seems to be that Theo is still a human being with emotions. That he has a cross to bear that none of us could carry. But at the same time it is also clear that he is a ticking time bomb and that nothing can keep him from repeating his monstrous deeds. What are we to do with this dilemma? The movie offers no answers, therefore it's easy to point the finger and accuse it of moral indifference. But not all issues, especially the question of what to do with sex offenders, can be solved. This movie sticks a finger into this festering wound with a relentlessness that few will find bearable. The guts it took to shoot this movie both from the director's point of view and - to an even higher degree - from Jürgen Vogel's perspective deserve respect. He plays this character with an emotional force that leaves you wondering how much Theo is actually in him. In America this movie would have destroyed his reputation for a decade. And at times you wonder from where Jürgen Vogel got the strength to pull this one through.All in all a shocking, disgusting, and deeply depressing movie that has the guts to tackle a true taboo - and there aren't many left. One word of advice though - don't take your girl-friend. If you are a girl - don't watch it.