or, "How One Passive Blond Bitch Caused the Complete Destruction of Everyone Around Her Without Barely Trying!" or, "Not a Bang, But a Whimper!" or, "How Maria Came Down from the Mountain, Had the Nuns Killed, Slit Her Employer's Throat, Sold the Captain's Children into Slavery, and Managed to Remain Her Singing Self" or, "How to Live with Much Less Than You Think You Need" or, "Where the War in the Middle East Will Eventually Get Us!" or, "I Started to Make a Film with a Conscience, But Then Realized Life Has No Meaning!" or, "The Modern Woman is Exactly the Same As Her Ancestors!" or, "How Pussy Overrules Sanity" or, "I Know He's Crazy, But He's Got a Big One and I Must Have It!" or, "The Rise and Fall of a Psycho/Sociopath and His Neurotic Passive Handmaidens"

"Die kommenden Tage" or "The Coming Days" is a German-language movie from 6 years ago that stars some of the most respected actors from Germany. these include Daniel Brühl, Augus Diehl, Johanna Wokalek, Jürgen Vogel (in a very small role) and Bernadette Heerwagen, who managed a German Film Award nomination, but has not really stayed relevant unlike the others. The movie takes place in the year 2020 and gives us writer and director Lars Kraume's idea of a broken world packed with greed, terrorism and constant ruthless fighting for power. I guess we are lucky we do not live in the world how it is depicted in here. Oh wait... The movie is really long, makes it easily past the 2-hour mark, but even if the talent from the actors is undeniable I was fairly unimpressed by this movie. It would have been nice to see a bit more of the circumstances in which the people back then were living. Instead the movie loses itself in relationship struggles, doubtful fatherhood and it simply does not use the scenario in terms of delivering a quality movie. What did I like most about it? Probably the "Wir sind Helden" song at the end.

I watched some of Kraume's more recent work such as "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer", which is an outstanding work, but it seems as if by 2010 he was not yet at his best, even if the German Film Awards thought otherwise. Diehl is fun to watch as always', even if he does not have the material here to show us something that he has not shown us in another film already. Brühl is almost completely forgettable and it is another example of how he really needs characters that perfectly suit him in order to make an impact. This is not the case here and this is also why I do not believe that he is one of Germany's best actors right now, even if he has given some impressive performances in the past. They tried all they could with making him more relevant with the eye patch here, but it just wasn't enough. Same thing applies to this movie. They definitely should have kept it at least half an hour shorter. It did drag on several occasions and there are many scenes in here that added very little in terms of the entire picture. Without these, with a more essential touch, it could have been at least a solid movie. But it is not. I do not recommend the watch.

This is not your typical sci-fi glimpse-of-the-future movie. No gleaming humanoid robots, no laser beams, no problems solved. Instead, this movie tries to portray the next ten years in terms that may be familiar to you if you are interested in "doomer" literature and movies. If not, get ready for a rough ride: resource depletion and consequent resource wars along with overpopulation and people seeking shelter in seemingly more secure countries (in this case, Germany) makes for an explosive mixture, witnessed through the eyes of various people. Some of them play an active part in what unfolds, others are mere onlookers and, sometimes, victims.

The future still brings some technological advancement, albeit in smaller scale than say, the ultimate AI or above-mentioned robots. Instead, they are shown only in passing, which makes them even more impressive: automated traffic that doesn't stop at intersections, e-newspaper and a small garden for growing pepper under the kitchen counter. All of this in contrast with a city falling rapidly apart, trash flooding the streets, all lawns used for camping by immigrants and other homeless people.

Highly recommended, especially if you like movies like "Children of Men". The only (small) drawback for me was that this one here is too strongly focused on the individual tragedies, and maybe too many of them to give the greater political image some space to unfold. It certainly is there, but much more is implied than actively said or done. Nevertheless, it is excellently done, well-acted and may give you some food for thought.