The action film, like the crime novel, is a satisfying ritual—with an allegory of good overcoming evil as its centerpiece—for many people. In the USA, this is normally done with famous stars and elaborate stunts, the better to make it "realistic" and "believable." I pass on most of those films because they seem silly to me. I cannot "buy" their pretensions to believability."Soundless" makes no pretense of believability. This film sustains a stylized, dreamlike quality throughout. The story is carried by the images. The dialog is banal because it is incidental. (That is in keeping, and does not detract from the film for me.) I found it thoroughly refreshing to spend ninety-four minutes in that dream, at the Philadelphia Film Festival.This year, I have seen a veritable treasure trove of new German films that took themes seen before, and took them in new directions in keeping with changed times. While a wide theater release for "Soundless" may be too much to hope for, I hope it will be available for people in the USA desiring to see it.

"Lautlos" is a well done and surprisingly fresh contract killer movie, far the best German film in this genre I know. Choosing Joachim Krol, often playing the nice guy next door is an interesting idea that really works out well. Krol as Viktor/Felix is playing well against his stereotype and provides an intense portrait of a dedicated character whose life changes dramatically when he meets "Nina", played by Nadja Uhl.Andreas Berkel is nearly equally good as profiler "Lang", showing a hunter that is completely absorbed by his job. Among other things - I like the pacing of the story and it's sympathy for the main characters, two lost souls trying to come together against major obstacles. In the end, you cannot help to develop sympathy for the lonely guy living from death but striving for love. I was very satisfied to see Viktor escape in the end, finding love and peace (?). Even his hunter seemed to like this in the end. I definitely advise to see this one.

For everybody, who likes the shiny American action film, this truly might be a bit different. What I like especially about this "german action movie" is, that everything has a kind of normal color and sound. Nothing is overdone, overcoloured. What appears as boring compared with action movies with high pace like e.g. Bad Boys is the attempt of making it more realistic and not so shiny. The villain, for example, is not the typical bad guy, shootings don't try to "look or sound good" or the SEK (german S.W.A.T.) appears quietly and nearly invisible - like they should - without any of that heroic "fly-through-the-picture-shooting". The characters are also carefully designed to maintain this realistic approach, although the investigator in charge may be considered a bit weird. The killer, however, is as normal as can be - somebody you could meet on the street. Especially Joachim Krol, who's most famous appearance was in "Der bewegte Mann" (german comedy) surprised me with his totally different character.All in all a film worth seeing, particularly while the story is different to all the action kind of movie you usually get.

Lautlos is a movie from Tom Tykwer's film company, and you can see his influence as a producer in the sometimes dreamlike, introvert sequences. The film is about a serial killer who finds love and subsequently plans to quit his old underground life. Joachim Król plays the silent hitman very well, he gives a hint of broken softness to the character so that it's easy to like him. The plot is also exciting enough to keep your attention, with the right balance between action and character development. The only big problem about this movie are the dialogues. They are deliberately artificial but in such an exaggerated way that they just spoil the whole thing. Still, with the Król-bonus, it's a 7 out of 10 for me.