Based on the life of an Iranian German drug dealer and rapper, Fatih Akin’s interminable drama feels uncomfortably partial to its violent subject.
Any enjoyment of Fatih Akin’s protracted, genre-hopping “Rhinegold” requires that you give a hoot about its thoroughly unlikable subject, a violent criminal and, later, successful rap artist named Giwar Hajabi. And while Emilio Sakraya deserves respect for tackling the monumentally unsympathetic role of the adult Hajabi, his cocky charisma only underscores the movie’s seeming enchantment with his character’s wrongdoing. As does a fairy-tale ending featuring frolicking, animated mermaids.
Inspired by Hajabi’s tumultuous life, “Rhinegold” opens in 2010 with his torture in a Syrian prison for refusing to cough up the bullion from an audacious gold heist. From there, the film flashes back to his inauspicious birth in a rubble-strewn cave as his parents, both Kurdish musicians, flee the Iranian Revolution. By the mid-1990s, safely settled in Bonn, the young Hajabi is busily selling drugs and purloined pornography while perfecting his ability to deliver bare-fisted beatdowns. Luckily, the Persian beauty (Sogol Faghani) he has his eye on will later forgive the vicious pummeling he gives an adversary right in front of her.
Mixing war movie, coming-of-age drama and gangster thriller, Akin and Hajabi’s screenplay is a dispiriting brew of repellent behavior and odious rap lyrics. Incarceration ends the film’s parade of criminal conspiracies while kick-starting Hajabi’s singing career; but beneath the nefariousness we catch a glimpse of a more interesting story, one of dispossessed minorities repeatedly banding together to claim power in a new world.
“Rhinegold” is not that movie. As its swaggering subject sniffs out another ally and a new angle, careless of the pain he’s causing his family, the picture seems almost impressed.
“My kismet sucks,” Hajabi complains after one of his many setbacks. Somehow, I don’t think kismet was his problem.
Rhinegold
Not rated. Running time: 2 hours 18 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
