Film Review: "Rising High" ("Betonrausch") (2020).

From Germany and Netflix comes Rising High (Betonrausch). This German comedy-drama film written and directed by Cüneyt Kaya. Ready to do anything to get rich, a young man upends the Berlin property market with his shady pal, till the good times threaten to destroy it all.

The film stars David Kross, Frederick Lau, Dejan Bucin, Janina Uhse, Sophia Thomalla, Anne Schäfer, Uwe Preuss, Jerry Kwarteng, Silvina Buchbauer, Heike Hanold-Lynch, Alexander Yassin, and Jimmy Gutzeit. Kross was born to play this part. There's something about him that makes me want to smack him when he smiles his big, ingratiating smile. Kross more than adequately conveys the kid-in-a-candy-store mentality of a teenager who has stumbled onto a great scheme.

The lighthearted tone and smart pacing allow for unwavering entertainment, plenty of natural humor, and the film's knack for sympathizing with antiheroes. Long and complex, the agility with which the film tells the story of Viktor performed with incredible naturalness, promptness and charisma by Kross. Some may see the film as frivolous, but I believe it is an expertly-made popcorn film alive with energy, style, momentum and heart. It maintains a gripping balance between comedy and drama. The film is one of those deceptively slight offerings that manages to reveal more about its maker than the intended masterpieces often do. It may be nitpicking, but since this a movie about a con-artist constantly wanting more, it needed a smarter screenplay and a brisker pace. With its extended epilogue, the film feels about a half-hour too long, but the story is so good and there are so many fabulous set pieces that you can't imagine leaving anything out. It's a fascinating story, and the film is just as fascinating to watch, especially with Kross taking the reins as the suave, persuasive con artist. The film's shiny wrapping paper of clever counterfeit schemes, pretty girls and fairytale cinematography belies the larger, richer themes that attracted such heavyweight talent to the project. The film would have been one of the best films to stream on Netflix for the year if not for the film's overbearing mommy and daddy issues hijacking the plot. The film is impeccably made, wonderfully performed and enjoyable (if overlong), though it never actually gets a grasp on the brass ring. Though there's certainly nothing wrong with seeing these cinematic titans take a breather and kick back for a change, it still would have been nice to see them break a little sweat. The film slips in social commentary between Viktor's prodigious feats of lawlessness & capitalizes on the glee of watching someone beat the system. Breezy and entertaining, the film's essentially an examination of the rise and fall of a con artist, but it displays his cleverness and panache as well as his dishonesty, and ends on a satisfyingly redemptive note. While the critical consensus is that the film is not one of Netflix's 'major works,' it's also his least flawed and most purely entertaining movie for the year.

Simon says Rising High (Betonrausch) receives: