![]() He made a big step up the production ladder with an appearance as a German NCO participating in the siege of Stalingrad in the internationally-distributed World War II sniper drama "Enemy at the Gates" (2001), starring Jude Law and Rachel Weisz. Several years later, that training paid off when he started winning roles in German TV productions. He returned to learning his craft in a different locale, the Berlin School of Drama. Schick spent the following 22 months in a seminary before discovering that he wasn't called to serve God after all. That detour came after only a year of studying acting at Ulm's Academy of Performing Arts. The film has recently opened two weeks back and is still playing on Netflix.German actor Clemens Schick nearly abandoned his chosen profession of acting when he decided to take a sharp career detour into religion. There is one final twist at the end of the film but unfortunately by that time, no one really cares what happens. The acting is nothing short of spectacular and each actor appears to be just going through the motions. The film picks up a bit during the last 30 minutes with the story taking a few twists and turns. The original was shot in the Isle of Man. It could be set in a any other country in the world, thus making the suspense thriller generic and less interesting. Though a German film, there is nothing specific that makes the film German. When the trust between them breaks down, the story bears more credibility. One wonders the reason how these two men so different decide to come together to do the job. The script contains false alarms like the threat of cutting off Stella’s finger when the father refuses to pay the ransom, but the threat is never realized. KIDNAPPING STELLA is nothing really exciting or entertaining. Apparently, they had a falling out of a relationship. When the latter allows Stella to go do a number 2, she unmasks him and Stella is shocked to find the unmasked her former boyfriend. Vic (Clemens Schick) is a vicious unsympathetic monster apparently the brains of the kidnapping while the other, Tom (Max von der Broeben) is a kinder more fumbling man. It is interesting to note that ALICE CREED’s director Blakeson co-wrote the script with KIDNAPPING STELLA’s director Sieben. The synopses of both films are very similar, which goes to prove that it is the making of the movie and not the story that makes the big difference. One wonders at this odd choice of changing one name and not the other. In KIDNAPPING STELLA Danny is renamed Tom. ![]() In the original British version, the men are called Vic and Danny. The two men are opposites in personality – obviously for a film script to be more workable. A woman named Stella (Jella Haase) daughter of a wealthy businessman is kidnapped by the men. The opposite is true for KIDNAPPING STELLA. Kidnapping films often have as a subplot the Stockholm syndrome where the kidnapped falls in love with the kidnapper. The former is definitely then preferred choice as the dubbing is bad with the mouth synching and the words clearly out of place. The film still fails to deliver in either the thriller or drama mode.Īs the film is playing on Netflix, viewers have the option of watching it in the original German version with subtitles or dubbed English. KIDNAPPING STELLA is a Netlflix original film from Germany but a remake of the above described British film with a few changes. The original had superlative reviews especially in the acting category though it did not make much at the box-office. Blakeson’s 2009 THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED where a young woman is kidnapped by two ex-convicts, one of them her ex-boyfriend. ![]() KIDNAPPING STELLA is a remake of the British neo-thriller J. ![]()
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