Im Schatten
Director: Thomas Arslan
Writer: Thomas Arslan
Cast: Mišel Matičević, Karoline Eichhorn, Uwe Bohm, Rainer Bock, David Scheller, Peter Kurth, Hanns Zischler, Jörg Malchow
Seen on: 17.7.2026

Plot:
Trojan (Mišel Matičević) was just released from prison where he spent time for robbery. He protected Richard Bauer (Peter Kurth) by serving the sentence without talking, but Bauer is unwilling to give him the share Trojan is owed and wants to make sure that Trojan doesn’t ask anymore. In the meantime, Trojan is looking for a new job and his eye lands on an armored car robbery. But he can’t do it alone. Working together with others, though, is not easy when those others are far from as professional as Trojan is himself.

If Im Schatten had been made in Hollywood, it would be a multi-million action vehicle with its fair share of explosions. But, much like his earlier movie Dealer, Arslan’s take on gangsters is more grounded in reality which makes it very intriguing.

We have all seen the kind of gangster movies where there are good gangsters and bad gangsters and the good ones are glorified. Im Schatten is not that kind of film. While Trojan is a protagonist that we like to follow, the film doesn’t shy away from his brutality. He is good at this stuff, but that doesn’t make him a moral character. And in the end, he doesn’t even really win. It was all for nothing and made a lot worse along the way.

A lot of the film hinges on finding Trojan interesting to follow. This worked for me, in large part thanks to Matičević. He barely speaks, but his performance of Trojan is viscerally physical. You get the feeling that underneath his cold detachment is something incredibly dark, and we catch glimpses of it throughout.

I was not greatly happy about the fact that there is literally only one woman in the film, and that she hops into bed with Trojan as a matter of course (I mean, understandable, he is a sexy dude but, you know). I would have liked to know a little more about her motivations in general, too. Then again, this is a men’s movie in many ways and it is not surprising that it doesn’t pay much attention to women.

Other than that, though, it is a well-made movie that deserves to be seen. Even though I personally didn’t connect that much with it emotionally and crime isn’t really my genre, I was invested enough that it kept me hooked. That should count as a pretty big recommendation.

Summarizing: good.