Bang, Boom, Bang

In Unna, small-time criminal Kalle has spent the money his partner hid before going to prison. The man is getting out earlier than expected. To put it back, Kalle arranges a robbery and hands the job to people as incompetent as he is. Peter Thorwarth wrote and directed his first feature. The cast includes Ralf Richter, Oliver Korittke and Diether Krebs. The film is set in the Ruhr and takes its humour straight from there: closed mines, beer halls, the local accent and men who cannot do anything properly. It became a cult item in Germany. It did no great business in cinemas, but television repeats and video sales turned it into a generational film, and its lines still circulate. The structure is standard crime comedy: a plan, a mistake, a chain of disasters. The difference is that the characters are not cunning but genuinely stupid, and the film shows affection while mocking them. Thorwarth made other films set in the same region, and they are spoken of together. Who it is for: viewers who like regional German comedy and provincial crime films. Who it is not for: anyone who will miss the dialect and references; half the humour lives there.