In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Rising High' which went live on the streaming service on 17th April and which I saw from the comfort of my own sofa on Monday 18th May.'RISING HIGH' is a German white collar crime drama film overdubbed into English that is Directed and Written by Cuneyt Kaya. The film has generated largely average Reviews, has a run time of 94 minutes, and has been described by one publication as 'The Wolf of Wall Street' for Real Estate Agents.
Our film opens up with a wild party going on well into the night at a very plush upmarket residence somewhere in the well-to-do suburbs of Berlin. There's plenty of hard liquor being downed, cocaine being snorted, scantily clad young women dancing erotically, music thumping and generally a good time being had by all. At the end of the night, the camera pans inside the house, to a sofa where sits a young man alone with a bottle of Scotch having just done a line and in burst four heavily armed Police Officers and force the man to the ground, handcuffing him.Fast forward, and that same man, Viktor Steiner (David Kross) is sat in an interview room within a prison talking to journalist Luna (Anne Schafer) while a sound recordist and a video camera operator record the conversation. Viktor is spilling his guts on the why's and wherefore's of his rags to riches lifestyle in the Berlin Real Estate Market and how he very successfully managed to scam dozens if not hundreds of clients out of their savings by buying low and selling high in the Berlin property market post GFC by exploiting a loophole in the market, and all the corruption, tax evasion, money laundering and fraudulent activity that goes hand in hand with such schemes.
His story starts off in his younger years when his painter and decorator father Peter (Robert Schupp) owed money to the German tax man - money his father was unable to pay. A few years later and it's time for Viktor to leave home and make his own way in the world. Headed off to Berlin to seek his fame and fortune with nothing more than 200Euros in his pocket, a suit folded up and stuffed into his back pack by his dad, and the clothes on his back, off he trots. Viktor however, soon comes to the realisation that in this town you either need a large stash of cash behind you or an active network of connections or both to survive. So having started off labouring on a building site, he quickly jacks this in and produces himself a forged 'official' document at a local 7/11, that states his monthly earning capacity, his job title and the necessary credentials to land him his first step up on the ladder of success. And that first step comes in the form of a penthouse suite that he rents and in turn rents out to the Bulgarian workers on the building site that he had initially worked at, for 20Euros a night compared to the 35 Euros they have been paying at a local hostel. Pretty soon, Viktor is raking in the cash by the holdall load, which leads to another penthouse and then another all rented out to Bulgarian work crew.
But of course there is more to this scam than meets the eye. They need a corrupt mortgage broker, someone who can manipulate the property auctions, and a source for gullible clientele willing and prepared to part company with their savings for a sure bet on the property ladder. And that corrupt mortgage broker comes in the form of the attractive and successful Nicole Kleber (Janina Uhse), who is also a dab hand confidence trickster, and who also knew Gerry from their school days. Before you now it Viktor and Gerry have recruited Nicole and before you know it Viktor and Nicole are an item.
We then fast forward a few months and after numerous other dodgy scams involving fake bank loans given to clients forcing them into bankruptcy and tax loopholes the trio and their immediate associates are basking in their success and their wealth. Nicole gets pregnant, Viktor and her get married much to the chagrin of Gerry who tries to warn Viktor that after their first year it is all likely to turn to shit for the pair and that she will take him to the cleaners, chew him up and spit him out in little pieces. Viktor of course will have none of this, and dismisses his friends best advice almost as soon as it is said. Viktor and Nicole move into the lavish suburban property that we saw at the onset of the film and for the first year everything is great, and they both relish being parents to their young daughter.
Meanwhile, the boys wild lifestyle of heavy drinking, cocaine abuse, and partying hard at an upmarket brothel while buying up various other companies in the real estate and financial planning businesses sees their ever expanding fortunes escalate further while Viktor's marriage starts to crumble. They recruit a new financial controller to navigate Germany's rigid tax regime on the condition that she also does drugs as all the employees at their growing company snort something throughout the day and its an employment pre-requisite it seems. She complies, does a line and is hired on the spot.
Sometime later, she interrupts the boys game play in the office with a notice from the Tax Department demanding payment of back taxes amounting to a few million dollars. Viktor goes into meltdown while Gerry takes this set back in his stride. Viktor of course has not set aside any funds to cover his future tax liabilities and is left totally exposed, whereas Gerry's wife has frittered away a large part of their earnings to cover such unforeseen eventualities. Viktor's only hope of covering this looming debt is in the form of a very expensive diamond and sapphire necklace that he originally purchased for his mother as a surprise gift from his separated father, which backfired on him and which he gave to Nicole for safe keeping but which she says she does not know the whereabouts of. After a one night stand with a prostitute Chantal (Sophia Thomalla) at their favoured brothel hangout, Nicole gets wind of this and kicks husband and father Viktor out on his ear.
Soon afterwards Viktor's life implodes as he doesn't have the means to pay the tax man, his wife has frozen his assets pending divorce proceedings, he doesn't have a prenup much to the disgust of his hired divorce lawyer and what's a man to do, except concoct a Plan B. This involves setting up their own bank in Malta, which involves hiring a couple of ageing Directors who have not worked in the banking sector for over ten years and bribing a Maltese banking official into giving the pair the green light. In so doing they get an instant line of credit in the tens of millions of dollars from the World Bank and all of a sudden they are solvent again.
Back to the party that we saw at the start of the film and the Police Officers bust in and arrest Viktor, meanwhile Gerry has done a quick bolt to some overseas destination to hang low for a while until the dust has settled. Viktor meanwhile has recounted all of his nefarious exploits, his con schemes, his tax evasion and the demise of his marriage because of his greed to the journalist Luna. His is visited in prison by his estranged mother Viktoria (Susan Angelo) who advises her son that his father was killed when the car he was driving span out of control in the countryside. This news hits Viktor like a sledgehammer.Upon his release from prison sometime later, Viktor is greeted at the gates by his now divorced wife Nicole and their young daughter aged about six or seven it would be safe to assume. Previously Viktor has recorded a secret message for his daughter onto a CD in the hope of rekindling his relationship with whom he hadn't spent anytime with since the separation. That CD was delivered by Luna in with the monthly subscription to some children's magazine. After a largely positive initial meeting Nicole allows Viktor further visitation rights. Now living a very humble lifestyle in a one bedroom apartment, one day Viktor returns to find a note slipped under the door. That note was from Gerry with a cryptic message about the marble lions head that adorned the front entrance to Viktor's former home. Reading between the lines, Viktor goes to the house in the dead of night armed with a hammer and a chisel and starts chipping away at the bust of the lion. Cracking it open, he reveals a pouch which contains the diamond and sapphire necklace that was previously thought lost. Viktor is back in business!
With 'Rising High' there is nothing new here that you haven't seen in countless other movies of a similar ilk before - including the already mentioned 'Wolf of Wall Street' plus 'War Dogs' to name just two, and, which incidentally were far superior films. The film is polished enough and competently crafted, and Kross stands out as the gifted young man with the patter, the smarts, the confidence and the good looks to be able to sell ice to the Eskimos and sand to the Arabs but who is ultimately undone by drugs, alcohol, money, more money and yet more money and all the toys, trinkets and trappings that it can buy. In this respect this is a derivative predictable formulaic offering of which you have to suspend belief as the trio of scammers con their way into and out of such outlandish scenarios that all plausibility goes out the window. All that said, it is watchable and by the time the rather predictable ending comes you do feel a certain connection to Viktor for all his past crimes and misdemeanours - no matter how unsavoury they may have been.'Rising High' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.
-Steve, at Odeon Online-
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