Director Faith Akin has skill and panache, and the lead actors are likable. But the film's high energy can't compensate for the muddled conception.
Head-On(Gegen die Wand)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Germany, Turkey · 2004
Rated R · 2h 1m
Director Fatih Akin
Starring Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Catrin Striebeck, Güven Kıraç
Genre Drama, Romance
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After driving into a wall Akin, a widowed alcoholic, finds himself in a psychiatric hospital. That's where he meets Sibel, and the two agree to get married and eventually fall in love. But their lives have never been simple, and neither is their love.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Akin's raw, powerful, multileveled movie takes us places we never expected to go.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Superbly acted.
Fine, gritty, contempo love story.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
Unremittingly explosive, Head-On is not an easy film to watch. It is, however, a memorable one.
Head-On loses its merry mojo once events turn irrevocable and the action switches from Hamburg to Istanbul.
Fatih Akin's surprisingly grisly feature spills more blood than both of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films combined, which is strange when you consider that it's a love story.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Propelled by ferocious sex, nasty violence, and coy interludes of traditional Turkish love songs.
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
Despite the tears, the blood and the booze, Head-On is a hopeful film.
A romantic comedy with jagged edges, Fatih Akin's exhilarating Head-On paves the road to love through miles of prickly thatch.
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