The Lives of Others

Highly praised in reviews.

A fine movie, no doubt, but as often I see that my expectations play a rose in my response. The hero, Dreyman, struck me as too good to be true and simplistic. Likewise, though not to the same extent, the sympathetic Stasi man who sees the light, Weisler. The plot, though it generates plenty of suspense, struck me as being a little too mechanical, a little too much like a complicated mousetrap. I think part of the thrill of the movie is extra-aesthetic: when had the East German police-state been so directly confronted in a movie, at least a well-known one?