What to Do in Case of Fire?

2001
6.8| 1h41m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 19 July 2002 Released
Producted By: Claussen+Wöbke Filmproduktion
Country:
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.sonypictures.de/filme/was-tun-wenns-brennt/
Info

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 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.

Genre

Drama, Action, Comedy

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Director

Gregor Schnitzler

Production Companies

Claussen+Wöbke Filmproduktion

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What to Do in Case of Fire? Audience Reviews

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Thom-Peters During the early 80s, squatters in Berlin have been mostly students on an adventure holiday, some years later they were mostly full time bums on a permanent "Do you have a Mark to spare"-quest. They had their fair amount of street fighting activities, their weapon of choice was the cobble, and sometimes they threw it through the glass of a bank building. But they were no terrorists. Maybe wannabe revolutionaries, in their dreams. Nobody took them really serious.Now some of them seem to have made this movie. Just let me tell you what happens during the first 15 minutes.A group of Berlin squatters decides to blow up an empty old villa. Must be a very evil villa, because basically squatting was about saving empty buildings from neglect.They do an amateur movie about this heroic deed, maybe they think there is a market for Building-Snuff-Videos.Their bomb doesn't explode. They don't care, they just forget about the whole thing. Even though the entrance they took was very obvious and easy to detect, the next 13 years nobody enters the villa.Not even the real estate agent who in 2000 wants to show it to a client. Why should she make sure that there are no unpleasant surprises waiting inside, like squatters, homeless, garbage, animals, broken mains, collapsing floors ... ? The main door will not open, so the client uses some force to open it, and the old bomb, that had been waiting patiently behind it, finally explodes. He and the real estate newbie get slightly hurt.The client has been a government big shot. Hell breaks loose, police raids start.Of course, amongst their prime suspects are two veteran squatters, who still stay at a formerly occupied tenement-house. The police confiscates .... all of their super-8-films. Believe me, they really do, I'm not making this up, it's even the main part of the plot: The Berlin police in the year 2000, looking for some bomb-building terrorists confiscates the 80s super-8-films of some broken down bums. Please don't ask why. But imagine how the authors and producers had to get people interested in such a story. And they succeeded, which is even more unlikely.The two die-hard squatters will try to get the band together again and rescue what contained once proud memories of their glory days and now fatal evidence of their stupidity from the well guarded chambers of the police.By now you will know that you are not watching a movie, but are instead trapped inside the dream of some pathetic drunken 80s squatters, "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes". Frightening? No, just a strange and boring childish mind-scape.I realize that there really IS a market for stuff like this, the infamous lovers of dilettantish and inane films. Here they'll find a lot for their liking. This is a very, VERY bad movie, and by all means, they should check it out.
roisred My sister and I rented this movie becuase she was searching for someother movie to watch in German class besides "Europa, Europa". I didn't come into the movie with any expectations, and was really pleasantly surprised by how fun and compeling it was. I know nothing about German anarchists, maybe they were terrorits and shouldn't be sympathized with, but I was definatly rooting for them to get away. There were some less than perfect stuff (the rekindling of a romance is not well handled, nor is the love-interest interesting at all), but there were so many good things, they are easily overlooked by less nit-picking movie watchers.The German punk soundtrack is a definate plus.Jean
George Parker There's little question that "What to do in Case of Fire" is an excellent production in all respects. However, the film has one huge flaw. Telling of "Group 39", a motley bunch of 6 young left-wing two-bit terrorist freedom fighters in a divided Germany, who, with the exception of two hapless hold-outs, do a hippy-to-yuppie end-of-the-cold-war metamorphosis, the film asks us, the audience, to cleave to their heroics as they set about to destroy police evidence linking them to a 12 year old bomb which is accidentally detonated causing only minor injuries to the innocent victims by making another bomb and planting it in the Police building. Unfortunately, it was for me, and may be for others, difficult to buy into the group's reprise as a terrorist by any other name is still a terrorist. Unlike the French film "Bandits", which creates the requisite a la Robin Hood public enthusiasm for a girl band of escaped convicts, this flick does little to make us want to care about its protagonists who are simply adding insult to injury during the run. For those who can overcome this huge flaw and buy-into the comedy-drama, an enjoyable watch awaits. (B-)
Nahret Once upon a time, there were six friends with a vision of a future in complete freedom, without the restrictions of a government stifling those too young and too foolish to stay within the bounds of what is 'normal'. So these friends lovingly created a homemade bomb and documented the whole process for posterity. They planted the bomb... and forgot all about it. Until twenty years later, when it finally blew up.Twenty years later, only two of the six are still members of that "Scene" in Berlin, while the others have gone off to get married, have kids, drive Mercedes, make millions in their very own advertisement company or become district attorneys (!). Of course, their later careers will be of little interest, once the police have had a chance to look through the confiscated film material...This is a great movie, about visions, friendship, solidarity - and anarchy. The plot is solid (in a Bond kind of way), and there is a deliciously ironic final twist.So, what do you do, when there's a fire burning? Well, let it burn!Naturally.