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Aykut Kayacik, Barbara Philipp, Devid Striesow, Doris Schretzmayer, Jamie Schuricht ...( see more  see more... ) , Klaus Lowitsch , Martin Feifel , Matthias Matschke , Nadja Uhl , Sebastian Blomberg , Til Schweiger

What To Do In Case of Fire? tells the humorous and touching story of six former creative anarchists who lived as house squatters in Berlin during its heyday in the 80s when Berlin was still an island ...( read more  read more... )in the middle of the former eastern Germany. At the end of the 80s they went their separate ways with the exception of Tim and Hotte, who have remained true to their ideals and continue to fight the issues they did as a group. In 2000, with Berlin as Germany's new capital, an event happens forcing the group out of existential reason to reunite and, ultimately, come to grips with the reason they separated 12 years ago.

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86% liked it

2,232 ratings

Critics

50% liked it

24 critics

R, 101 min.

Directed by: Gregor Schnitzler

Release Date: July 19, 2001

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Stats: 136 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (136)

  • Caltiki
    March 1, 2009
    Caltiki
    Cool 'anarchist' comedy from Germany.
  • FangsFirst
    April 11, 2008
    FangsFirst
    Honestly, the title of this film is not "What to Do in Case of Fire" which is more a statement, but something more like "What do you do when things are burning?" I realize this is semantic, but it annoys me that they changed it from a question, and it's slightly awkward in the se...( read more)nse it's used in the film, though only a bit.

    I knew nothing of this film when I bought it, learned only the title when adding it (database-wise) to my collection and read nothing more before I started to watch it. It's pleasant to me to wander in with no preconceptions whatsoever--and to find myself watching intentional mimicry of homemade film of anarchist German kids in West Berlin, holding their own in a strange silent-movie way against the masses of police arrayed against them in full riot gear. They're all wearing mohawks, dreadlocks and spiked hair, often coloured, leather, chains and so on--full on punk getups, throwing pies, urinating on authority and otherwise vandalizing things. They explain how to build a bomb, give their rules for how to do it and how to live this anarchistic life, "shit[ting] on the imperialist pigs." Tim (Til Schweiger), Hotte (Martin Feifel), Maik (Sebastian Blomberg), Nele (Nadja Uhl), "Terror" (Matthias Matschke) and Flo (Doris Schretzmayer) are these punks, and set up a bomb in a housing project that has remained abandoned until the present day, where we find a protest being complemented by Tim's vandalism of police vans, with Hotte now wheel-chairbound and cheering him on. The two of them still squat in their old digs in Kreuzberg, and Tim occasionally steals out for petty theft and other jabs at the capitalists, like leaving a mall open to looting. When the bomb they set 12 years earlier goes off, Tim and Hotte are forced to round up the now easily incriminated--by virtue of the 8mm films they made at the time--Gruppe 36 (the old gang) who have by and large all "sold out" and gotten "real jobs."

    The rest of the film is about the conflict between the radical activism--and perceived immaturity thereof--that Tim and Hotte still practice, and the miniscule offenses their former colleagues now stage against the same enemies, which amount to little. It's absolutely a comedy--and a very stylishly filmed one--but that does sort of deal with ideas of authority, rebellion, control and freedom, in a very light and vague way. It never endorses violence--even when bombs are embraced by all, they are intended to destroy property alone--and does portray Tim and Hotte as living outside the real world and not dealing with it. Thankfully it manages to avoid portraying them as naive idiots--my own usual immature impression of radical leftists, even as a relative lefty myself--so that we can still see them as intelligent and well-meaning and, most importantly, sympathetic. While Tim is not good at dealing with the changes wrought in his relationship with Flo, he is not an outright child either, so we don't lose our connection to him when he hits that particular obstacle.

    This is a very fun movie, with a pretty clever central base of how these characters will deal with having such an extreme past, one they can no longer pretend didn't matter or was an irrelevant act of youthful exuberance. The characters themselves are all very fun, with the approach to Hotte's newfound disability quite tastefully addressed, especially when he finally shows the pain of it that he hides from everyone most of the time. I am absolutely thrilled to have picked this up, and will likely show it to other people in the future.
  • ElCochran90
    September 16, 2009
    ElCochran90
    A German anarchist comical concept that I actually enjoyed for a while, but lacks force. It had great talent and a good plot, but wasted unnecessarily.

    57/100
  • pooglywoogly
    January 27, 2009
    pooglywoogly
    in case of fire, stop, drop, and roll
  • Soundsofmadness
    November 8, 2008
    Soundsofmadness
    No thankyou - Not interested
  • lightafire
    December 3, 2007
    lightafire
    a great way to show how people will change in the course of time and how they'll be willing to get back into their ways for something tt has happened a long time ago. friends that never really left.
  • hailnothing
    November 26, 2007
    hailnothing
    A comedy about German anarchist punks... how much better can it get?
  • adikarma
    October 18, 2007
    adikarma
    Satu- satunya filem punk yang aku suka.

    Pada dasarnya mereka adalah anarkis yang dunia remaja yang rebel dan penuh candu kebencian pada dunia kapitalisma membuatkan mereka bom kedutaan amerika di Berlin.

    Nah, letupan hanya berlaku 12 tahun kemudian bila kebanyakkan mereka dah p...( read more)unya kerjaya dan masa depan.

    So funny bila diaorang terpaksa berkumpul semula sebagai anarkis terdiri dari peguam, ahli koperat , model , babysitter yang mana hanya dua orang yang masih kekal dalam perjuangan anarkis.

    Tak macam Hollywood ,pengarah jerman ni tahu konsep punk dan anarkis.

    Banyak lagu best.

    APA nak buat kalau terbakar ?
    biarlah terbakar.

    ternyata ada sesuatu di sebalik topeng.
  • darlenet
    September 28, 2007
    darlenet
    An interesting and enjoyable film about a group of former anarchists from Berlin who are reunited well after the wall fell.

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