Christmas Crossfire

Christmas Crossfire
Image source: Google

Ratings: 2.2/5

Duration: 105 Minutes

Original Language: German

Genre: Crime, Other, Comedy, Drama

Director: Detlev Buck

Writer: Martin Behnke, Detlev Buck

Producer: Christoph Daniel, Detlev Buck, Marc Schmidheiny, Sonja Schmitt

Released On: 04 December 2020

Cast: Kostja Ullmann, Alli Neumann, Sascha Alexander Gersak, Sophia Thomalla, Merlin Rose, Peter Kurth, Detlev Buck, Anika Mauer, Frederic Linkemann, Bernd Hölscher, Karsten Mielke, Malte Thomsen, Roman Schomburg, Jakob Schmidt, Steffen Scheumann

Plot: Samuel (Kostja Ullmann), who is an American Literature professor, is in town for a work conference. Just to crash his time, he is in a bar for a few drinks and to relax. And that is when he meets Edda (Alli Neumann). She sees Samuel and they immediately hit it off.

Edda goes to his table and challenges him to do a vodka shot drinking contest. After that Edda spends the night with Sam in his minibus and they strike a great connection. She then convinces him to skip the conference and go on a road trip with her to her hometown. She has not been to her town in the last five years and she was excited to visit.

Samuel gets convinced and they soon hit the roads. On the way, they stop by in the woods for a brief break. After stopping off in the middle of the woods, Samuel hears shouting and screaming and goes to check it out, against Edda's wishes. What Samuel encounters is horrific, he sees a man on the verge of getting shot at point-blank range that looks like a mob-style killing. Samuel stops the murder, but this makes him the target. To safeguard himself, he disappears into the woods.

Edda ventures off in search of Samuel. On her way, she is accosted by one of her hometown's police officers, who becomes sexually aggressive. In defending the horrendous act, Edda ends up killing him with his gun.

Samuel makes it to Edda’s hometown after he has done everything, to elude the capture, helped and hindered by the man whose life he has just saved. Edda’s father is the mayor of the village. When she returns to see her family, both Edda and Samuel have learned why Hermann (Sascha Alexander Gersak), the man who is trying to murder Samuel, is on the warpath with henchmen, who are also the village firemen. It involves Hermann's wife, who has been having affairs with other men, including the man Hermann tried to kill in the woods.

While Hermann's attempts at crime on all levels have proven to be bumbling and incompetent, Edda and Samuel must find a way to stop him before he starts killing people, and somehow enjoy what is left of Christmas.

Review: This holiday season Netflix is bringing a German flick to our screens. One can only imagine this to be a sweet, cozy romantic German movie but no, Germans don’t do it that way. They do it with a full bang, and so, ‘Christmas Crossfire’ is all about guns, murders and hell lot of misfortunes.

It is an entertaining dark comedy-thriller, which manages to unravel a vast array of knotty plot twists into something engaging from beginning to end. It is a culmination of many side stories and the climax comes when all the side stories and backstories are beginning to overwhelm, but somehow keeps it together.

The element of Christmas is close to null in the movie, except for a Christmas dinner that goes from awkward to violent in a short amount of time. For much of the movie, it is easy to forget that it is set during the holidays as it is focused on so many other stories.

More than a holiday fare, Christmas Crossfire comes across almost like a parody of romantic comedies, movies with crazed bad guys and road trip movies. The anarchy of all these events happening in such a short amount of time is part of the fun.

The awareness of the conventions, forms, and tropes of all the different genres the movie flirts with gives the movie a spark that overcomes any feelings of having seen all this before, in one form or another. While asking the viewer to suspend more disbelief than they might in other movies, the fast pace works in part because it doesn't give the viewer much time to reflect on any skepticism, even as the movie becomes more ludicrous and gratuitous.

Everything said and done, this is more like holiday fare for people who want a break from the sappy Hallmark Channel offerings churned out by the dozens every December. So, what it if that’s what you are looking for this holiday season.