"Der amerikanische Soldat" or "The American Soldier" is a West German German-language film from 1970, so this one had its 45th anniversary last year. The writer and director here is Rainer Werner Fassbinder and like several of his earlier works, this is a black-and-white film. Also like some of his early works, it is a relatively short movie as it runs for 80 minutes only and this already includes closing credits. The title character is played by Karl Scheydt, who is probably (a couple years after his death) not really known to many anymore today, but he actually appeared in several Fassbinder films. The filmmaker had a tendency of choosing his regular male actors in a way that each of them gets one film to shine in and this is Scheydt's. The rest of the cast here include many actors who regularly appeared in Fassbinder's films. If you weren't nice, you could call it his posse. I will not mention the names as you can check these in the cast list yourself, but Jan George for example is the older brother of the late Götz George and he plays a pretty big role in here and also appears in other Fassbinder films which not too many people know.
About the action, here we have the story of a man who is an American/German contract killer and he is in Germany after the Vietnam War to fulfill some assignments. We see him kill people, we see him meet his mother and brother again and we also see him hook up with a woman. It is a bit ironic that not this woman who was intended to bring him down is crucial in the end, but his own mother when it comes to who helped the police the most in catching him eventually. All in all, I must say that black-and-white film noir is not perfect for Fassbinder as his later films relied a lot on the use of color and it was a vital instrument to the stories he told. But this is not supposed to mean, he is not a good artist when it comes to essential filmmaking. I really liked the showdown at the end for example in this film, but I really struggled with caring for everything that happened earlier in the film. And ultimately I must say that sitting through the first hour is not worth it, even if the last 15 minutes are pretty good. That's why I give this one a thumbs-down, but to end the review on a positive note I still want to mention the great song used by another Fassbinder regular here: Günther Kaufmann, who does not act in here, but is a scene stealer with his music.
About the action, here we have the story of a man who is an American/German contract killer and he is in Germany after the Vietnam War to fulfill some assignments. We see him kill people, we see him meet his mother and brother again and we also see him hook up with a woman. It is a bit ironic that not this woman who was intended to bring him down is crucial in the end, but his own mother when it comes to who helped the police the most in catching him eventually. All in all, I must say that black-and-white film noir is not perfect for Fassbinder as his later films relied a lot on the use of color and it was a vital instrument to the stories he told. But this is not supposed to mean, he is not a good artist when it comes to essential filmmaking. I really liked the showdown at the end for example in this film, but I really struggled with caring for everything that happened earlier in the film. And ultimately I must say that sitting through the first hour is not worth it, even if the last 15 minutes are pretty good. That's why I give this one a thumbs-down, but to end the review on a positive note I still want to mention the great song used by another Fassbinder regular here: Günther Kaufmann, who does not act in here, but is a scene stealer with his music.