Colonia

If you are able to suspend your disbelief and accept that the writers and director failed to see the wood from the trees...then, you will be rewarded with a fairly tense little thriller that looses its way amid a rather flimsy love story.

For - dear hearts - the proverbial baby was chucked out with the bath-water...

This should have been a film about the monstrosity that was Paul Schäfer Schneider...pastor, pedophile, misogynist, cult leader, Nazi, a state sanctioned torturer and, a murderer...he died in 2010, this is not a distant, forgotten chapter in history...this is recent, this story still resonates, there are survivors...in other words, it's toxic.

At the Toronto International Film Festival...a German Diplomat attended the Q&A after its premiere...to refute the German Government's involvement with Paul Schäfer and his commune...well, there ain't no smoke with fire...even by attending ignites a spark!

It's a thoroughly watchable film...performance-wise, there are no weak links...Emma Watson is slowly and successfully shedding her Hermione skin, she needs a few more meaty roles before the slough is complete. The competent Daniel Brühl does his thing well...perhaps, not stretched to his full ability?!? But, it's Michael Nyqvist who steals the limelight as Schäfer...unfortunately, the spotlight doesn't shine on him as much as it should...the exchanges between him and Watson have a spark...an unexploited cat and mouse game that flounders under Watson's character...she's a trolley-dolly pitted against a master criminal. Yes...it's time to suspend that disbelief once again.

The film that this story deserves has not been made yet...it surely will. Until then, Colonia serves as a taster for the darkness to come...for this is a truly dark chapter of recent history that needs to be told.

Trailer...