Plot
Three activists cobble together a kidnapping plot after they encounter a businessman in his home.
Release Year: 2004
Rating: 7.5/10 (16,255 voted)
Critic's Score: 68/100
Director:
Hans Weingartner
Stars: Daniel Brühl, Julia Jentsch, Stipe Erceg
Storyline Berlin student Jule is hoplessly indebted due to an accident she caused, uninsuredly hitting a rich businessman's limousine. Evicted from her flat she moves in with her boyfrend Peter and soon learns that Peter and his flatmate, Jan, are breaking into luxurious mansions at night. Instead of stealing or vandalizing, though, they carefully and ornately rearrange furniture and valulables and leave obscure messages. Jule convinces Jan, who has a crush on her, to pay a visit to the villa of her creditor.
Writers: Hans Weingartner, Katharina Held
Cast: Daniel Brühl
-
Jan
Julia Jentsch
-
Jule
Stipe Erceg
-
Peter
Burghart Klaußner
-
Hardenberg
(as Burghart Klaussner)
Peer Martiny
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Villenbesitzer Jürgen
Petra Zieser
-
Villenbesitzerin
Laura Schmidt
-
Tochter Laura
Sebastian Butz
-
Sohn
Oliver Bröcker
-
Aggressiver Globalisierungsgegner
Knut Berger
-
Globalisierungsgegner
Hanns Zischler
-
Vermieter
Claudio Caiolo
-
Paolo
Bernhard Bettermann
-
Jules Chef
Sylvia Haider
-
Neureiche Frau 1
Claudia Jakobshagen
-
Neureiche Frau 2
Opening Weekend: €18,925
(Netherlands)
(6 February 2005)
(17 Screens)
Gross: $175,493
(USA)
(16 October 2005)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
France:
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Argentina:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
Director Cameo:
[Hans Weingartner]
one of the protesters at the beginning.
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes:
The Mercedes that Jule keys in the parking garage is also used as Hardenberg's Mercedes when he arrives at his house right before catching Jule and Jan. You can see this by matching the license plate to each scene.
Quotes:
Note on Wall:
Every heart is a revolutionary cell.
User Review
"You have too much money."
Rating: 10/10
Don't let anyone tell you horror stories about the camera work, they
probably never had an ounce of imagination anywhere in their bodies!
For those of us who are bored blind with standard Hollywood-ian movies,
this kind of camera work is very refreshing. The constant motion puts
us right into the characters' world and helps foster an instant
connection with them. Not that one wouldn't connect with them without
the fancy directing! On the contrary, Jan, Jule, and Peter will
reawaken the idealist in anyone.
The movie is essentially about three friends with seemingly no
particular direction in life other than petty political activism now
and then. But Peter and Jan have found a very clever way of subverting
the socio-economic system they so despise. Calling themselves "the
Edukators", they break into the homes of the fabulously wealthy only to
make some absurd adjustments to the arrangement of their furniture and
leave a simple note behind: "You have too much money."
With this basic plot, The Edukators delves into that ill-defined human
notion of morality, eventually blurring the line between the ethics of
social politics and the ethics of personal relationships.
Don't let the plot scare you, you don't have to be an anarchist to
enjoy this movie! It's well-written, beautifully shot, and flawlessly
performed. Some of the drawbacks are that it gets a little long and
preachy at the end (which happens fairly often to new directors), but
let's not nitpick. I'm willing to gloss over the film's (rare) faults
because, in the end, there is far too much to take home from this
movie. It's a real shame that some would wish to dismiss it as some
crackpot anarchist film.
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