With story and screenplay written by Christian Zübert and directed by same, this German dubbed psychological action thriller now showing on Netflix is produced by Kerstin Schmidbauer with Executive Producer as Oliver Berben.

Without mincing words, set in Frankfurt, Germany, this movie will leave you at the edge of your seat. Taking you through a rollercoaster of a guess game, you’d question your own sanity as well as the lead character’s who by the way delivers an emotionally compelling performance. 👌

MAY contain spoilers from here on!!!🚨

Synopsis:

Sarah Wulf (Jeanne Goursaud) an Ex-special forces military personnel suffers post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a devastating attack. Years later, she goes to a US Consulate with her 6-year old son Josh (Rickson Guy da Silva) in connection with an American Work Visa.

Not before long, her son goes missing. The head of the premises Erik Kynch (Dougray Scott) assures Sarah her son wasn’t with her at the consulate when she checked in. He goes ahead to show her a CCTV footage to confirm this.

Hellbent on finding her son, Sarah comes in contact with Kira Wolkova (Lera Abova) as she uncovers some dark secrets & conspiracy in the consulate.

Will she eventually find her son? Does he truly exist? Did she lost him somewhere else and is only delusional? What conspiracy does she uncover? Well, why not grab your cuppa (it may get cold before you remember to take a sip though), relax (if you can) whilst you follow events unfold in this film with a runtime of 1hour 49minutes.

MY TAKE:

Phew! 😮‍💨 WHAT A MOVIE! 😳 I need to give my brain a treat after watching this cos it was superbly stimulating! 🙆🏽‍♀️

The cast was tailor-made; couldn’t have been more apt! Jeanne & Lera are surely a screen pair I’d love to see again in a film. Their role interpretation was smooth. The little boy performed as natural as any 6-year old would (I mean I’ve got one myself).

The Nigerian, Kayode Akinyemi (known for “The Vikings: Valhalla” of 2022) who played sergeant Donovan here; what a guy! 😁 See, all the actors understood their assignment and ate! 👌

POSITIVES:

The first thing that pulled me in is the crispy sharp picture quality of this film. It was vivid so much so that the imagery was super appealing to a viewer like myself who has a knack for aesthetics!

The sound score set the tone for the right dose of edge-of-the-seat kind of tension. The sequencing/progression is fast paced as it effortlessly carries the audience along. The flashbacks, enough to answer some missing bits.

While the character of Sarah Wulf here readily casts my mind to Sarah Connor in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hit action thriller “The Terminator” from way back 1984 for her motherlike sheer determination, many other critics have pointed out that this movie is quite similar to “Flight Plan” of 2005 stating that both films share same storyline (though I haven’t seen that one).

The use of PTSD as a psychological tool for storytelling worked in the favour of the narrative as it further helps in playing with viewers’ emotions. The subplots like that of Kira was all symbiotic with the story too.

Negatives:

Like with everything else, this movie isn’t without its flaws or eye rolling moments or headscratchers.

True, the lead character is passed off as an acutely trained ex military personnel, but for how she navigates through a highly secured premises, seemingly immune to pepper spray, beating all security protocols and taking down heavily built men single handedly, leaves you wondering whether someone was on stèroids or something. 🤔

Well, a mother in a frantic search for her son can become almost numb to any pain or resistance. However, the way it was portrayed here seems far fetched. Some of the fight scenes were even as unnatural especially the one with sergeant Donovan. More like dude was instructed by the director to go-easy on Sarah! 😅 That was crystal clear. He just fell like a pack of cards, laid there not fighting back and only got up when she had taken off! C’omon! 🙄😅

Should we talk about the scene at the pool side where it appeared like Sarah had dislocated her right hand from shoulder down, only to resurface few seconds out of water, punching and hitting with same hand like nothing happened. 🙆🏽‍♀️

The pen ultimate scene in the safe room leaves one with questions especially when the timer was set and counting. But I guess, there are answers for that. I’m not particularly familiar with such state-of-the art facilities and how they work, so not an authority in that regard. It’s just that some things didn’t really add up.

Conclusion:

This was an absolutely decent watch nonetheless! Entertaining, relatable, engaging, educational, compelling and interesting. One lesson I drew from here is NOBODY KNOWS YOU LIKE YOU! Though people may often try to gaslight you into believing their narrative about you, best to go with your own instincts! This movie comes highly recommended at the rating above 🙌🏾

Have you seen this? What did you think? 🤔