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      Banklady

      2013 1h 58m Crime Drama Action List
      Reviews 59% Audience Score Fewer than 50 Ratings After falling in love with a thief, factory worker Gisela Werler (Nadeshda Brennicke) becomes West Germany's first female bank-robber. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

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      Audience Member It's 1966, and the growing middle class of Hamburg, Germany, is dancing to rock 'n roll music, buying new cars, jetting off to somewhere warm and wearing the latest fashions. But that's not happening to Gisela Werler (Nadeshda Brennicke). The drab, 30-year-old is watching this new world pass her by as she toils away in a wallpaper factory. She's still living at home with her aging parents and tending to their medical needs, which were probably souvenirs of World War II. She can only dream of looking as glamourous as her boss' red-lipped secretary, who seems to have no trouble getting noticed by the men in the factory and probably everywhere else. Her relationship with meek, taxi driver Uwe (Andreas Schmidt) is about as steamy as last night's dishwater. He promises to buy her a washing machine after they get married but Gisela wants what every girl wants - fun. She wants to go to Capri. She wants the exciting life that she sees on the billboards and in the magazines. Her dull life starts to change when she meets Uwe's friend, Peter (Charly Hübner), who charms her off her feet. When she discovers that the two guys are two-bit bank robbers, she wants to join in. Peter is not convinced that Gisela is cut out for that kind of excitement but he decides to give her one chance anyway. As he says to her before her first heist, "If you go in there now, you'll leave as another person." Truer words have never been spoken because Gisela relishes her new life as well as the lifestyle that her ill-gotten wealth has brought her. Overnight Gisela becomes a media sensation, being dubbed the "Banklady". Until she came along, Germany had never had a female bank robber. Peter and Gisela committed 19 bank robberies in Germany over a two-year period and the rest, as they say, is history. Brennicke came up with the idea to make a feature film about Germany's darling bank robber after seeing a documentary about Gisela a few years ago. "I think the most interesting thing is that this story is absolutely true," Brennicke said in a Q&A session after the film was screened last year in Chicago. A few facts (such as specific locations) were apparently altered in the film but the rest is as it was. It is fun to watch Gisela robbing banks in her chic Jackie Kennedy-style outfits and wigs. She bathes in the notoriety that her alter ego is getting. For anyone who didn't live in the 1960s, it's hard to believe that banks didn't have security alarms or that money was freely placed on the counter for anyone to snatch and run but that was the norm back then. There is a scene where a bank employee takes a photo of Peter using a Kodak Instamatic camera, which is laughable in today's age of ubiquitous digital photography. Up to that point, the police had only relied on artists' impressions of the two. How times have changed! Some critics have taken director Christian Alvart (8 UHR 28 - 8:28, and also starring Brennicke) to task for not making BANKLADY into Germany's response to Hollywood's BONNIE AND CLYDE or even PULP FICTION. There are obvious similarities to these films - in the storyline with the former and in the directing style with the latter - but I would think that if Alvart had made an homage to either of these two films, he would have received even more criticism. These critics need to get over themselves. BANKLADY is a charming, enjoyable film, plain and simple. I don't think it intended to be great art and that's okay. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member So flat, & uninteresting. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member L'histoire réelle d'une rêveuse qui va se donner du frisson pour sortir de sa routine en braquant des banques. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/23/23 Full Review Audience Member Beruht auf wahren Begebenheiten. Wusste nicht dass es die wirklich gab - schon alleine daher ein interessanter Film. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member Based on a true story, this film depicts the emergence of crushed factory worker Gisela into the powerful media figure of "Banklady", Germany's first woman bank robber. 1960s Germany is lovingly recreated and the wallpaper-printing machine Gisela operates is a wonderful piece of steam punk. The police veer between incompeten e and insanity; Ken Duken, playing against type, portrays a handsome but ineffective police officer. The ending is a bit saccharine for me but apparently actually occurred. Well received at the 2014 German Film Festival, where it was the opening film, and winner of a Hugo Award Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review Audience Member Ako ste voleli ocigledne uzore poput Miliusovog Dillinger-a i Bonnie and Clyde bice vam simpa i ova nemacka varijacija na temu. Radnja je smetena u 1966. a prilca je istinita, tako da je to dodatni zacin.Preporuka. Moze bioskop (preferiram), a moze i kucni. bioskop :) Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Movie Info

      Synopsis After falling in love with a thief, factory worker Gisela Werler (Nadeshda Brennicke) becomes West Germany's first female bank-robber.
      Director
      Christian Alvart
      Screenwriter
      Christoph Silber, Kai Hafemeister
      Production Co
      ARD Degeto Film, Syrreal Entertainment, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) [de], StudioCanal
      Genre
      Crime, Drama, Action
      Original Language
      German
      Runtime
      1h 58m