Why oh why do Americans take a wonderful movie and mess it up? So much of this movie was fiction, when the real facts were far more exciting.
The original movie, Der Tunnel http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251447/ was based on the book written by one of the men involved in creating the tunnel. While Der Tunnel was English subtitled (the original was in German, and personally I usually try to avoid subtitled foreign movies) you don't even notice after the first 10 minutes because you're on the edge of your seat, and that's where you stay for 160 minutes.
Compared to the original, this adaptation had very poor character development and little in the way of tension. Oh, there's tension there, certainly - if you only see this one and not the original. So if you want to watch it, avoid seeing the original first. That was my mistake - I had a comparison.
I found myself barely caring about the people involved - half of them didn't even want to leave East Berlin and had to be persuaded. So many scenes were either unnecessary - such as a dinner with a character played by Jose Ferrer - or watered down, like a boy killed trying to climb over the wall, which was referred to very briefly by way of a newspaper clipping in this movie. In Der Tunnel, we literally lived through it.
But the biggest disappointment to me was the ending. No, I won't spoil it, but trust me - the ending of Der Tunnel was spectacular, especially when they told us over the end credits what became of each of the participants. For me, the ending of Berlin Tunnel 21 just didn't compare.
I could have been reasonably satisfied with this version and found it mildly interesting, worth watching once but certainly not twice. But to me it was just the clumsily re-arranged bones, while Der Tunnel was the flesh, curves and all.
Do yourself a favor and beg, borrow or steal Der Tunnel. If you can't, then you might enjoy this one.
The original movie, Der Tunnel http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251447/ was based on the book written by one of the men involved in creating the tunnel. While Der Tunnel was English subtitled (the original was in German, and personally I usually try to avoid subtitled foreign movies) you don't even notice after the first 10 minutes because you're on the edge of your seat, and that's where you stay for 160 minutes.
Compared to the original, this adaptation had very poor character development and little in the way of tension. Oh, there's tension there, certainly - if you only see this one and not the original. So if you want to watch it, avoid seeing the original first. That was my mistake - I had a comparison.
I found myself barely caring about the people involved - half of them didn't even want to leave East Berlin and had to be persuaded. So many scenes were either unnecessary - such as a dinner with a character played by Jose Ferrer - or watered down, like a boy killed trying to climb over the wall, which was referred to very briefly by way of a newspaper clipping in this movie. In Der Tunnel, we literally lived through it.
But the biggest disappointment to me was the ending. No, I won't spoil it, but trust me - the ending of Der Tunnel was spectacular, especially when they told us over the end credits what became of each of the participants. For me, the ending of Berlin Tunnel 21 just didn't compare.
I could have been reasonably satisfied with this version and found it mildly interesting, worth watching once but certainly not twice. But to me it was just the clumsily re-arranged bones, while Der Tunnel was the flesh, curves and all.
Do yourself a favor and beg, borrow or steal Der Tunnel. If you can't, then you might enjoy this one.