Doug Fairbanks Junior missed an opportunity, for very obvious reasons, to hire the brilliant German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to helm this Heimat drama for his TV series. A simple story of hero worship and a father-son relationship would have benefited from her cinematic genius.
Instead we have a routine drama, utterly predictable from start to finish. Robert Beatty is unconvincing as the American dad -he should have been playing a UK dad instead as "Americanizing" the show was pointless. With all the coming attractions for Michael Mann's new movie "Ferrari" playing endlessly on TV, I was reminded how Adam Driver (an actor whose work I have never enjoyed) has recently played not only Ferrari but Gucci as monumental examples of the stupidity of such Americanization.
So Beatty's son has been groomed by daddy to followi in his footsteps as a great mountain climber, but the kid is afraid of heights. The story soon moves to Bavaria, where a young German girl that Beatty loves is introduced and we see very fine location-photography as the two men finally learn something about each other en route to a routine happy ending.
It's all hackwork, and the sight of those mountain peaks against the sky prompted by wonderment -couldn't Leni have put her passion and artistry and lift this crap to say, new heights? We'll never know, because her "war criminal" (sic) status meant forced retirement. Studying film I was immensely impressed with her work, all the way through her belated final film release "Tiefland", not long before this Faribanks tv segment. Long after I became a fanatical film buff, artistry has given way to ultra-hacks taking over, even video store grads like the dreaded Tarantino receiving heaps of praise. I feel sorry for a generation or two of young film enthusiasts no longer exposed regularly to the pioneers of this art form.
Instead we have a routine drama, utterly predictable from start to finish. Robert Beatty is unconvincing as the American dad -he should have been playing a UK dad instead as "Americanizing" the show was pointless. With all the coming attractions for Michael Mann's new movie "Ferrari" playing endlessly on TV, I was reminded how Adam Driver (an actor whose work I have never enjoyed) has recently played not only Ferrari but Gucci as monumental examples of the stupidity of such Americanization.
So Beatty's son has been groomed by daddy to followi in his footsteps as a great mountain climber, but the kid is afraid of heights. The story soon moves to Bavaria, where a young German girl that Beatty loves is introduced and we see very fine location-photography as the two men finally learn something about each other en route to a routine happy ending.
It's all hackwork, and the sight of those mountain peaks against the sky prompted by wonderment -couldn't Leni have put her passion and artistry and lift this crap to say, new heights? We'll never know, because her "war criminal" (sic) status meant forced retirement. Studying film I was immensely impressed with her work, all the way through her belated final film release "Tiefland", not long before this Faribanks tv segment. Long after I became a fanatical film buff, artistry has given way to ultra-hacks taking over, even video store grads like the dreaded Tarantino receiving heaps of praise. I feel sorry for a generation or two of young film enthusiasts no longer exposed regularly to the pioneers of this art form.