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WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF FIRE Send This Review to a Friend
It is a peculiar time to be celebrating one-time rebels armed with bombs, but camaraderie, comedy and charm mark this German import, set in modern Berlin but harking back to the 1970s days when rebellious young men and women were opposing the establishment with leaflets, polemics and explosives and doing battle with the police.
Most of the key characters in "What to Do in Case of Fire" have since gone disparate ways, a few even achieving financial success. But Hotte (Martin Feifel), who lost his legs when a police water cannon ran over them and is now wheelchair-bound, still lives as a squatter in a Kreuzberg section building designated for destruction, as does Tim (Til Schweiger), a punk rocker who doesn't want to abandon the spirit of the old days. Two events brew a crisis.
A bomb that the group had left behind in an old, unoccupied building but never exploded is accidentally detonated, and when the building where the squatters live is raided, the police make off with possessions that include a film of the group's activities made by Maik (Sebastian Blomberg). All could be identified from it.
This results in the ex-revolutionaries getting together again in a scheme to sneak into the police center harboring the film and retrieve it. A new bomb figures in the plans. Old alliances and animosities are stirred, as well as the romantic feelings between Tim and his former girlfriend Flo (Doris Schretzmayer). The film, directed by Gregor Schnitzler from a script by Stefan Dähnert and Anne Wild, turns melodramatic as a new rebel-versus-police battle develops, and the reunited group is hunted once again by the experienced, embittered detective Manowsky (Klaus Löwitsch), who has his own troubles as his boss wants to cast him aside in favor of a new young hotshot.
Schnitzler at times goes in for pretentious slow-motion, which renders segments too arty, and the story generally lacks credibility. But there is humor as well as seriousness to the enterprise, and the rekindled friendship and dedication among the members of the group is easy to enjoy. Besides, nobody seems to be hurt in the new caper, and although the risks are great, the overall sense is one of student pranks rather than rebel desperation. Also, something is to be said for respecting one's good-old-days political past even when it has been superceded as time has marched on. A Columbia TriStar Pictures release.
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