Am Ende des Tages
Director: Peter Payer
Writer: Kai Hensel
Cast: Simon Schwarz, Nicholas Ofczarek, Anna Unterberger

Plot:
Robert (Simon Schwarz) is a rising politician who has built his career on being real and honest. In the middle of his election campaign he takes a weekend off to travel with his pregnant girlfriend Katharina (Anna Unterberger) to Tyrol. On their way there, they are followed by Wolfgang (Nicholas Ofczarek) who knows Robert from way back when. And Wolfgang knows something about Robert’s past that Robert has worked very hard to hide.

The movie did not impress me. It’s not really bad, it’s not really good. It just is.

I do like Simon Schwarz, usually. But in this film he is pretty much overacting the entire time. I guess he did it to not stand out, since Nicholas Ofczarek and Anna Unterberger dial it up 5 notches as well.

There is only one scene where it comes together, really, when Robert gives a phone interview, sprouting all the usual political platitudes, while breaking into Wolfgang’s car. But then he loses it and starts insulting the reporter on the lowest level. It’s a beautiful scene and Simon Schwarz is amazing in it.

But other than that – and some really nice cinematography – the movie does not have many redeeming features. The dialogues were rather stilted and the plot development was a bit tiring. And the characters were stereotypes.

At the same time I’m pretty sure that Kai Hensel was convinced that he wrote a very clever script with a lot of political satire. But it seemed kinda naive in its critique.

The pacing was pretty bad. The film is only 90 minutes long or so, but after 60 minutes I was eager to get it over with. I just wasn’t interested in the characters or what was going to  happen with them.

Summarising: meh.