Steineded How sad is this?

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Schutzengel" or "Better Angel" or "Guardian Angel" is a 2012 movie directed by, written by and starring Til Schweiger. He made this one between the two "Kokowääh" movies. And while Emma Schweiger is the star of these, Til's other daughter Luna is the star here. And even if she is considerably older, she is still the less talented one. I liked how they took the spice out of a scene when his daughter asked him if he would stay with her for the night by including a smelly feet joke afterward. But obviously, she is not his daughter in the movie. Also she is by far not the only Schweiger family member in "Schutzengel". The main antagonist is played by Heiner Lauterbach, but it is really nothing he has not shown before already. I liked the guy who played his lawyer early on. Nice performance. Schweiger himself does not appear until minute 15 roughly, but that's not a problem as the movie runs for considerably longer then two hours. The rest of the cast is known too: Axel Stein, Hannah Herzsprung, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Katharina Schüttler, Rainer Bock and Karoline Schuch support Schweiger and his daughter. Quite a few of them are killed by the villains, so we won't forget who the real hero is. Bleibtreu's encounter with the villain was pretty good, but everything else about him before that was stereotypical and forgettable. The very first attack (including Herzsprung's character) reminded me a bit of Léon with Jean Reno.It's a bit refreshing to see Schweiger in something other than a romantic comedy with drama aspects this time (he usually covers the action thriller genre in American productions), but sadly it gets old fairly quickly and the second half is worse than the first. They easily could have held that film around the 100-minute mark and deleted a couple of the less significant scenes. At the very end, it seems like they are not even trying anymore when Schweiger talks some poetic nonsense and we don't see how he kills all the villains afterward. Maybe the filmmakers thought that we have already had enough gun action and they were actually right. Sadly, this ending is not good at all either. Box-office-wise, this film was not as much of a hit as Schweiger's other works behind the camera, but that is probably not the biggest surprise as the whole topic of protecting a witness is not as family friendly as his other stuff. And apart from that, the film also has a handful more weaknesses in terms of the story. For example, it's so random and unrealistic that he, all of a sudden, runs into his ex-girlfriend who is the public prosecutor in this case. Or Luna Schweiger's silent scream at the end is pretty bad as she has no clue at all what is going on exactly with her protector this very moment. Or did they have an invisible bond all of a sudden? I don't think so. The worst, most cringeworthy moment, however, was "Don't f*ck with the wrong people!" Not the first time, a random English quote appears all of a sudden in a Schweiger movie and so far it has always been laughable, even if it may fit the situation.This film could have been quite a lot of fun if they had not taken themselves so seriously. You could have forgiven them for the unrealistic parts. Sadly, they want you to take this movie seriously and with that approach, it is not a good viewing experience. Not recommended.

Karl Self Chuck Norris is an inferior rip-off of Til Schweiger. Although Chuck Norris started his career before Til Schweiger. But then Til Schweiger decided to change the course of time itself. So there.What Til and Chuck do have in common, though, is that they both can be entertaining actors, for those good, old kick-back-with-a-beer movies that you shouldn't mention when you're trying to impress a classy chick. They serve, they entertain, they kick ass. However, they don't possess the powers of irony. If you let them produce, write, direct, act and cast their own daughter, then you're in for a long, dark ride. While he was at it, Til Schweiger might as well have called this movie "Til Schweiger Saves The World And All Chicks Want Him". As it was, he strangely limited himself to "Guardian Angel". But the action scenes are a lot of fun. Five mercenaries with automatic rifles blaze into a room with Til Schweiger in it. An unequal fight ensues, and a bad day for the mercenaries begins. Til tilts his gat gangsta style and wastes them all while bullets, plaster and human debris swirl through the air in slo-motion like birds through the rain-forest in Powanisqatsi. Beautiful to watch. My advice would be to simply fast forward to the next, beautifully photographed action scene. Because when the last bad guy has been wasted, Til Schweiger begins to talk, and that means serving up platitudes with a tightened jawbone. If you save another soldier's life, you see, you get a friendship bracelet. And Til could wear a different friendship bracelet "every day of the week". That made me worry about the Bundeswehr.With a more ironic script, this movie would have been enjoyable in a dumb way. As it is, it's a potpourri of Hollywood action movies from the last 30 years.

Dominik Schlatter The man (Schweiger) does good work. I would describe it as an action thriller with some typical schweiger-ish sweetness added. The audience gets both impressive action and quiet scenes that change the pace of the movie. I think the mix works. The story is pretty simple and we never have to guess who the villain is. (Much like a Luc Besson movie. Black and white.) This is what I liked about the movie:One. The cinematography is just beautiful. Carefully filmed scenes with strong (for lack of a better word:) audio effects. Well, it sounds great when people shoot. You'll notice.Two. The heroes and villains reload their guns and the hero doesn't hit every target with every shot. A trivial detail? Not for me. I hate it when people fire 30 shots with a 15-round clip. Or if their shotguns magically fire 16 times. Thank you Til Schweiger for taking the time to reload! You are one of the few.Three. The action doesn't try to come off as super cool. We don't see any of that stupid rolling-on-the-floor-while-shooting, jumping-behind-a-couch-in-slow-motion-for-effect, cheesy one-liners, showy re-loadings, bourne-identity-grade-fighting-scenes (everybody is a black belt these days) or cars-exploding-(for no reason)-after-being-shot-at!Do you know what I mean? 8 is maybe too generous, but a 6 would be too low. Watch it and decide for yourself.

katka-klimo If I didn't have to travel an hour across a border to see this film and then another hour back, I'd go and see it a second time. I really liked it - and there were not many films I went to see twice in a cinema. The only one I recall was one I've seen 11 years ago. Despite a fairly predictable story and a load of stereotypical stuff you'll see in every other made-in-US movie, it still has o lot to offer and will keep your attention every second of it's length. Realistic characters with nicely presented relationships make the film very emotional, so that some people will even cry. The characters are very likable, their feelings are moving, it recognizes other psychological problems for ex-soldiers than just drinking alcohol. The film is not overloaded with breathtaking CGI, explosions and non-stop brainless action, yet it doesn't get boring at any point. Schweiger invested considerable time and effort in training with weapons under the supervision of professionals, firing thousands of shots. Because of this, you will not see any ridiculous stunts, magazines are reloaded as they should be and there are no stupid dialogs about who is about to die and how. The are also no fill-ins in form of uselessly repeated scenes typical for some low-cost films. The film flows at a more or less constant speed, action scenes changing with non-action dialogs in smaller portions and delivers good value entertainment. Also, luckily, the typically German personality apparently went on vacation. Maybe it was intentional - to make it more likable in the rest of the world, or because the story was partially written by non-German authors. Whatever. I mean - let's face it: who'd want to watch a 135 minute film loaded with poker-faced old know-better geezers. I thought it deserves a 6, but I so long to see it again, that I guess it should have a 7 for that ...or perhaps an 8?