Go For Zucker! (aka Alles auf Zucker!/Gangster
Comedy/First Run Features)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: B-
With so
many people mad about how The Sopranos
actually ended, if it ended and who may or may not be dead, it is a good time to
get to a recent Gangster Comedy where the title character of Zucker (Henry
Hubchen) is a con artist involved with that dark world and is talking about his
final days as now, he is dead. Dani
Levy’s Go For Zucker! (aka Alles auf Zucker!/2002) is a German
film about the very Jewish Zucker and his schemes for making it.
The film
beings at a morgue where his dead body is on the slab and giving us a
voice-over about his life, then switches to a pool hall con scheme that
backfires in one of the smartest, funniest opening sequences in any Gangster or
Comedy film in years. The choice of song
set to the opening credits is brilliant.
Though
the film is not able to maintain that momentum, it is a very pleasant surprise
and as it tells its story about his criminal entanglements, but then the script
(by Levy and Holger Franke) is also deeply concerned with Zucker as a human
being an part of the German Jewish community that itself is fractured for
reasons beyond obvious if you anything about WWII and The Holocaust. When his Orthodox Jewish brother Samuel (Udo
Samel) shows up, it twists his unorthodox plans further.
Hubchen
is perfect in the title role and in any language, his delivery of his dialogue
is deeply authentic. The rest of the
cast (unknown to U.S. audiences) is also very effective, but it is Levy who
delivers a film that offers a synergy of history, cinematic Pop Culture, film
genres and energy that has to be seen to be appreciated. I hope to see more of Levy’s films soon.
The
letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image is soft simply because it is not anamorphically
enhanced, but this is a nice-looking film and would probably look good in HD
and 35mm. Cheers to Director of
Photography Carl-Friedrich Koschnick for a superior grasp of
cinematography. The Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo is good, but has no major surrounds despite being a Dolby Digital
theatrical release. This is nicely
recorded, including the score by Niki Reiser, deserving a 5.1 track. DTS would be especially nice. Extras include stills, text director biography,
text production notes and a making of featurette with Levy.
- Nicholas Sheffo
