Not My Day (4½ Stars)

This is a film I can relate to. I can see myself in the main character, Till Reiners. It's as if the film were made about me. I'm not saying that the details of his story fit my life, but he acts and reacts the same way I would under similar circumstances.

When he was a young man, Till Reiners played in a rock band. It was one of the thousands of amateur bands that never make the big time, but if you're a hardcore rock fan it doesn't matter. It's all about the music, not the money. Then Till fell in love with a rock chick. They got married. That's when the real world set in. Very few people can live from rock music, so Till quit the band and got a job as a bank clerk. He cut his hair short, put on a suit and became respectable. He did what he had to do to put food on the table for his wife and his three-year-old son. Rock music and the lifestyle that came with it was in the past.

Maybe Till no longer looked like a rocker, but it still slumbered within him, waiting to be released. This happened when a man who called himself Nappo robbed his bank and took him as a hostage. Till was scared, but at the same time he admired the man pointing a gun at him. Nappo had the wild attitude that Till had given up. While Nappo is in hiding they sit together, they eat and drink together, they sing rock songs together. Till doesn't want to go back to his respectable life. He wants to be a rock'n'roll outlaw, so he calls himself Till Tiger and becomes Nappo's partner in crime.

After having suppressed his urges for years, Till goes too far. He becomes so wild and reckless that he scares Nappo. However much Nappo tries to hold Till back, it doesn't work. Till is a madman.

This is an excellent film. Maybe it's intended to be comical, but for me it hit too close to home to be funny. The film's about me. I could go just as crazy if my inner tiger were unleashed.

I'm sorry to say the film is only available in German, without English subtitles. If you can speak German, it's worth watching.