Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader. Together with Baader's girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, they form the violent Red Faction Army, and together perpetrate a slew of terrorist attacks as a way of disrupting the fabric of what they see as an increasingly fascist state.
The Baader Meinhof Complex is a sprawling, ambitious dramatization of West Germany's most notorious terrorist organization. Uli Edel directs with kinetic energy and the film benefits enormously from committed performances across the board — Martina Gedeck as Meinhof and Moritz Bleibtreu as Baader are particularly strong, earning the acting category a high mark. The plot is comprehensive but episodic, sometimes feeling like a checklist of historical events rather than a dramatically cohesive narrative, which limits its storytelling impact. Cinematography is competent and period-appropriate without being especially distinctive. Novelty is moderate — the film covers well-documented history but does so with German directness and without glorifying its subjects, which gives it a certain integrity, though it doesn't reinvent the political thriller genre. The ending, depicting the Stammheim prison deaths, is sobering and appropriately bleak but somewhat diffuse given the sheer number of characters followed throughout.