This is "Paul Is Dead", a German movie from 2000, so this one is almost 20 years old now and it was the first filmmaking effort by writer and director Hen(dri)k Handloegten, still a prolific filmmaker nowadays. This is not a really well-known film still now (or back then), but also not one that has been forgotten mostly, somewhere in-between. The most unsual thing here is definitely the running time as the movie goes on for 70 minutes only and in the version I watched this also includes already a brief duration of closing credits. I assume there is a longer version with the 75 minutes it says here on imdb. Anyway, the cast is nothing special. There are many other German films made around the beginning of the new millennium that include many more famous actors. Milberg and Steeger play minor characters and maybe one or two other actors are also recognizable by my fellow German film buffs, but the "star" here is Sebastian Urzendowsky in his first full feature film performance that was also kind of his breakthrough if you take a look at the solid awards attention this film received. I cannot share the praise though. He is one of several highly forgettable aspects of this film and he was around the age of 14 when this was made. Not an impressive child performance by any means. From any perspective, but then again I am kinda biased when it comes to him as I am not at all impressed by the stuff he did in the almost 2 decades since this one here. He is a very limited actor in my opinion, he was like that before the age of 18 and still is today in his mid-30s. Anyway, lets take a look at the story. I guess that Paul McCartney reference we have here is one main reason why people from abroad also watch this film. And actually the movie is repeatedly packed with said message that Macca had died and was replaced by another singer who had a striking resemblance to McCartney. Well.. if that was true, then they have been doing a fine job for a really really long time now as the man is still alive and kickin' making music. Perhaps it helps being a Beatles fan to appreciate this film a bit more, but somehow I don't think so. I also felt the music was mostly disappointing here, even if it was probably not as bad as almost everything else. There's really not much positive I can say. This Beatles reference grew old so qucikly here and it just felt like an absurd conspiracy theory quickly and of course we are not supposed to take these teens' wild ideas seriously, but still taking this idea as the foundation of this film did not work at all. These kids speaking in a way that did not feel authentic or realistic was not helping the matter either. And then the ending where the film really hit rock-bottom and honestly I'd consider giving it a 2 out of 10 even with how this unfolded. The new teacher from Liverpool? Really? All for the sake of it and highly unrealistic this would happen during that time. And why would he run around the classroom and give these kids different names for whatever reason? It just makes no sense. Same goes for the pseudo-important and very pretentious idea of including the audible news coverage from John Lennon's murder eventually to use an important historic event to give this film at least some kind of significance that it failed to achieve from any perspective in those 65 minutes before. Do not fall for the rating or the awards recognition. This is a weak movie. At times, like the ending, a very weak movie even. Big thumbs-down and it's close to a failure overall, but for now it is just a negative recommendation from me. Watch something else instead.
Review of Paul Is Dead
