Hinterland (2021) User Reviews

A dark and sinister mystery thriller about a WWI ex-soldier who decides to bring a series killer to justice

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 30 January 2023]

Grim and scary film with intrigue, plot twists , chills , thrills , sleaziness , ugly scenes and lots of blood and gore . Peculiar thriller showing the European situation just after First Wold War , it remains as a special piece on surprises , showcasing the unique visual , special color and ordinary stylistic tricks that mark Stefan Ruzowitzky 's work . Austrian production dealing with a serial killer -Jack the Ripper lookalike- in Vienna executing some grisly killings . It is set in Vienna, 1920. The Austro-Hungarian Empire has collapsed , there an ex-prisoner of the Great War called Peter Perg (Murathan Muslu) goes back home from the Great War, after years of captivity. But the Vienna he comes home to is nothing like the place he once knew. After the Treaty of St. Germain, the Austrian empire had disappeared and the emperor had been overthrown and a new Austrian Republic was born . The new Austrian Republic thrives on social and artistic freedom but the streets are really dangerous and citizens are suffering extreme poverty , starvation , misfortunes, shortages and strikes . A stranger in his hometown, life's Perg takes a turn for the worse when one of his previous comrades is murdered. Suddenly the mysterious killings of veterans are mounting. Personally connected to the victims, Perg finds an ally in the intelligent forensic doctor Theresa Korner (Lisa Fries) , with whom he has a deeper, shared history. Their investigation leads them into the darkest corners of the city, as they face off a cruel and systematic killer and intrigues from within the police force. But when the murderer's net closes around Perg himself, he takes on the moral dilemma of his existence.

A crime thriller with historical remarks , including thrills, chills, suspense as well as gore and blood. This shows the European situation just after the First World War and particularly in Vienna with unemployment loom overhead , hungry people , anti-democratic movements and others participating in strikes and attempting the communist revolution that had already triumphed in Russia. This is a moving and horrific story about astonishing oddly murders in Vienna committed by an elusive killer . Stars Murathan Muslu who gives a nice acting as the ex-veteran WWI soldier returning home and finds his comrades brutally murdered deciding to bring the serial-killer to justice , as well as Liv Lisa Fries is nice as the cool-headed forensic doctor who finds out the main keys . This is one of the rate movies in which everything pulls together to create a weirdly compulsive atmosphere with plenty of fog , darkness , lights and shades , well shown on the expressionist photography by Benedict Neuenfels in 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' style including misconfigured buildings, strange and vertical shots and other abstract images, adding an excessive use of frames made by means of 3D computer generator , filmed in Studio 1 Rosenhügel, Vienna, Austria and Filmland Studios Kehlen, Luxembourg. The production design is brilliant and acceptable interpretations , but the film is neither for squeamish people , nor for the easily queazy.

This gory motion picture was competently directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. This craftsman director usually lives in Vienna where he's shot some films . In the early years of his career, he directed documentaries and commercials, but also music videos of noted artists such as N'Sync, Scorpions or Die Prinzen. He is a famed filmmaker and writer, specially known for Lilly the Witch: The inheritors (1998) , The counterfeiters (2007), The Dragon and the Magic Book (2009) , Deadfall (2012) Patient Zero (2018) and Hinterland (2021). The lattr featured at the Locarno film festival in August 2021 Locarno , being Winner International Film Festival 2021 , Audience Award Best Film Stefan Ruzowitzky (director) , Sabine Moser (producer) ,Oliver Neumann (producer) . And Austrian Film Award, Winner Austrian Film Award Best Production Design (Oleg Prodeus , Andreas Sobotka , Martin Reiter, and Best Supporting Actress (Margarete Tiesel) , Best Cinematography (Beste Kamera) , Best Costume Design (Uli Simon). Rating : 6.5/10 . Acceptable and decent suspense thriller .

Moody Manhunter

[Minnesota_Reid · 7/10 · 14 May 2022]

A POW and his comrades return home to defeated and depraved Vienna immediately at the end of World War I. Everything has changed, and for the worse, in his eyes.

Since Expressionism was still big by 1918, the movie's skylines and buildings are deliberately distorted to reflect the feelings of the protagonist. It's ugly and a bit distracting, but for me, it worked. It was one of the more original and interesting things about the movie.

The main plot line revolves around the hunt for a sadistic serial killer, but this was neither particularly interesting nor credible. It was no worse than in many movies, but no better.

The main actor is big and very charismatic, dominating every scene. I hope we see more of him.

Questions remain. If they were POWs on the Russian front, wouldn't they have been home sooner, after the Bolsheviks made a separate peace with Germany? And why is a movie set entirely in Vienna called 'Hinterland'?

Less is more

[KillerFeature · 5/10 · 16 October 2021]

What I really liked about the film was the background story (espeacially the time frame) and the choice of the cast.

The plot itself sometimes feels draggy and some parts are completely unnessecary, whereas other fragments are not logical or didn't got enough of attention/development

The art style (or should I say the CGI) in the background sometimes is very distracting or doesn't mix well with the real life elements of the scene.

The last thing I want to mention is, that many aspects of the film feel very forced. Either the director/screenwriter didn't believe in his own creation/the cast or the producers were interfering in his work. What do I mean by that?

Giving or showing the audience extra scenes for things should've already figure out themselves (if they were paying attention) and the name dropping typical austrian/vienesse culutural speacialties, like locations, food or local terms.

All in all, it was an average film experience. Not very entertaining but far from bad.

Mixed feelings

[ottovollbrecht · 6/10 · 14 September 2021]

I have seen this movie in a Sneak Preview.

What I really liked was the mask and the sound. Well done! Also Murathan Muslu was convincing in his role.

Although there are a couple of reason why I'm giving it only 6 stars.

The very special Art Style with a lot of tilted shots and all the inclined houses was just too much and sometimes distracting. Some people may like that, but I don't.

Another reason is story related. I won't spoil anything, but there are at least 3 annoyingly unrealistic scenes (in terms of reactions in specific situations).

Hinterland is a typical European-made drama

[eva3si0n · 7/10 · 29 April 2022]

Hinterland is a typical European-made drama. I didn't see much Aavstrian film at all, but Hinterland left a positive emotion. An interesting era of the "lost generation," about which so few films are made and so many beautiful literary works. The film has an interesting artistic style of espressionism, which conveys the entire curvature of the state of society and the main character of those years. In Hinterland, human psychology and human relationships are brought to the first place, there is no Hollywood gloss. The film will appeal to all lovers of detective stories and European cinema.

really like the style

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 26 May 2023]

It has taken some time, but Peter Perg leads a group of soldiers back home to Vienna after the end of Great War. They had been brutalized while imprisoned in Russia. Perg finds the old social order in chaos. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had collapsed. He left his beloved wife and daughter behind to fight for the Emperor, but they are now gone. His aristocratic home is empty. He is forced to return to his police work when one of his soldiers gets ritualistically murdered. To many, he is the prime suspect.

I really like the style. It's half German silent film, half Se7en, half comic book. I would add some more rain, but it's got a cool look. I like diving into this time and place. I like the general premise and the lead character's suffering. I would probably just kill off the family. He would move heaven and earth to find them. He wouldn't care about anything else including the murder of his men. Finally, I have an issue with the ending. It has a big coincidence that really bugs me. Aside from those two issues, I really like this movie.

Backdrop

[hugorune-60-356120 · 1/10 · 18 March 2022]

The backdrop destroys everything. Last time I have seen that ultra-cheap backdrop was in Czech-Jules-Verne-movies from 1970. Gives me the feeling the actors are acting in front of a white canvas. What a waste!

It was going so well until the ending...

[euroGary · 8/10 · 15 October 2021]

'Hinterland' (whose alternative title, 'Home Front', is I think more appropriate) is a very stylised film. It is set in 1920s' Vienna, a city with, apparently, more than its fair share of shadows and to which the right-angle is a stranger: buildings lean at crazy angles, floors tilt and windows are rarely perfectly square. Ordinarily this type of artiness would annoy me, but while it is strictly unnecessary here, it certainly adds to the atmosphere.

A group of Austrian soldiers, newly-released from a Russian prisoner of war camp, return to post-World War One Austria to find a newly-minted republic with politics and attitudes they do not recognise, populated by people who see them as something of an embarrassment (a comparison with American soldiers returning from Vietnam could be made). While having to cope with extreme poverty and broken marriages, a more immediate danger presents itself: their number is whittled down by a murderer who employs methods that would turn the average villain in 'Midsomer Murders' green with envy (gnawed to death by rats, anyone?) Fortunately the group's leader, Perg (Murathan Muslu, who has a very nice facial profile) is a former murder detective who is quickly co-opted by the police to investigate the case, helped by feisty female pathologist Theresa (Liv Lisa Fries) and bright-eyed young detective Severin (Max von der Groeben). The story trots along at a fair clip, with regular murders and new clues holding the viewer's interest in the central mystery, while Perg's marital difficulties - should he return to the wife he has not seen since the first day of the war? - and burgeoning romance with Theresa provide character development. There is even a bit of comedy when Perg and Severin encounter a homosexual.

And then we reach the solution, where the creators seem to lose the nerve in evidence when they designed the extreme look of the film and instead fall back on tired old cinematic tropes: the lead detective's deep personal connection with the case, the false solution, the long-lost relative... all of these supposed revelatory plot twists are telegraphed, well in advance, with all the subtlety of a flashing neon sign. It all feels like rather a let-down.

Having said that, I would recommend this film for its look, for the acting and for most of the plot. The viewer must be prepared for the final fifteen minutes not to live up to the promise of the preceeding ninety, but this is still a memorable production that will bear repeated viewing.

Refreshing

[avindugunasinghe · 6/10 · 7 January 2023]

First off the visuals are remarkable. Yellowish colour tone used for daytime scenes adds a comic book like character and has a gloomy nature at the same time. This goldy skies and the gloomy buzzing streets of the post-war Vienna is shown as a beast waiting to swallow the defeated soul of Perg. More than just a murder mystery Hinterland succeed in becoming a commentary on the society that any soldier is forced to encounter and the unjust treatments in society. Chilling and graphic imagery adding some edge to the movie. Great performances by the cast with a lot of solid personalities. A movie with a freshness to it that's easily make it worth watching.

So bad...

[gunzerandreas · 1/10 · 19 February 2022]

The worst CGI in years!

I had to quit after 20 min.

I liked the main character, but couldn't find anything good!

Save your time and something better!

Short Redhead Reel Reviews (Wendy Schadewald)

[Critic-8 · 9/10 · 14 May 2022]

When an Austrian criminologist and former police superintendent (Murathan Muslu), who has a young daughter and is estranged from his wife (Miriam Fontaine) due to her affair with a police inspector (Marc Limpach), returns home to Vienna in 1920 following the aftermath of WWI and incarcerated as prisoner of war for two years in a Russian camp in Stefan Ruzowitzky's gripping, intense, twist-filled, morose, imaginative, well-acted, surreal, expressionist, 98-minute, 2021 crime thriller highlighted by a striking cinematography and sets, with architecturally skewed buildings mimicing the skewed mentality of the Viennese townsfolk, he works with a forensic pathologist (Liv Lisa Fries) and a police commissioner (Max von der Groeben) to investigate the grisly, sadistic slayings of former POWs (Tom Hanslmaier, Timo Wagner, Lukas Walcher, et al.) who turn up tortured and murdered while its citizens and police chief (Germain Wagner) ostracize and bully him and fellow soldiers (Aaron Friesz, Stipe Erceg, Eugen Victor, et al.) treat them like pariah.

Another movie that tries to re-write history and make criminals look better

[ballgray · 1/10 · 14 August 2022]

Can't understand, why movies these days don't stick to historical truth but try to paint a new picture on historical times. War criminals don't like to be painted as war criminals I guess. If a movie relates o history, it could at least tell it truthfully.

Meeh

[cthulu-614-538357 · 4/10 · 17 May 2022]

Peter perg dies not talk or count with his fingers like a austrian. He sticks out like a foreign body. He is so german hounding, i wonder if he was in germany for a longer time. He is anoying becouse of his unaustrian pronouncing.

Forgotten Heroes and troubled killers

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 7 May 2022]

Yes the background can be annoying - I have to point that out. Although I think I am pointing out the obvious. Something everyone can see - no pun intended. But something that hopefully won't bug you too much. Not sure if there was another (cheaper solution) to this, but the movie does concentrate on the ... story and the characters it has. Which is a good thing and should be the thing you should look forward to the most.

That said, the actors really deliver here. Even someone like Matthias Schweighöfer or anyone else who has a small (insignificant or not) role or a bigger one. This is a murder mystery ... one where our hero seems to have something hidden himself. Or something that haunts him from the past ... and not just the fact that he was in a war. The ghosts that haunt him from that are big too of course.

There is enough to sink your teeth in and relish in where the story takes us. You can't be squeamish though, because there are some scenes that can be called borderline and quite violent. But it is the nature of the movie and our main bad guy ... tough case to crack. A Sherlock Holmes would be a nice thing to have - but maybe the former police man is able to find the culprit too ... you have to watch to see! And also if his journey is ... well let's call it complete.

Please make a TV series of Perg

[itriatay995 · 8/10 · 9 November 2022]

Hinterland is a great movie. You feel like you are watching a comic book.. The dialogues are great and the ambiance is awesome. Perg is an antihero that is why it is quite exciting to watch his life after his return from the prison camp. Murathan Muslu is a great actor. Liv Lisa Fries has been a favorite ever since I watched Babylon Berlin and she was awesome in this movie as well. Stefan Ruzowitzky must make TV series based on Perg and crimes in Vienna. Perhaps adding some flashbacks from the great war. I believe that a TV series based on Perg can be a great series like Babylon Berlin. There is a lot story to tell about him. In short, watch this movie !

Historical Thriller by ACADEMY AWARD winner Stefan RUZOWITZKY with Murathan MUSLU and Matthias SCHWEIGHÖFER

[ZeddaZogenau · 8/10 · 27 October 2023]

Worth seeing historical thriller about the time shortly after the First World War! The world is out of joint in "HITLERs WIEN / Hitler's Vienna" (see the book of the same name by Brigitte Hamann). ACADEMY AWARD winner Stefan RUZOWITZKY ( DIE FÄLSCHER ) has made a brilliant film whose special style is reminiscent of the great Eric Rohmer film "La Anglaise et le Duc / Die Lady und der Herzog / The Lady and the Duke".

Murathan MUSLU plays a war returnee who returns to Vienna almost broken. A crazy series of murders soon begins, leading inexorably into the bowels of post-war VIENNA. Liv Lisa FRIES (BABYLON BERLIN), Aaron FRIESZ, EUROPEAN FILM AWARD nominee Margarethe TIESEL (PARADIES: LIEBE and DER GOLDENE HANDSCHUH) and the new global star Matthias SCHWEIGHÖFER impress in other roles. You won't see such a blast from German-speaking countries. It's a shame that only 10,000 tickets were sold at the German box office.