Scorched Earth
In this tense, tight-lipped arthouse thriller that recalls the work of Jean-Pierre Melville and Michael Mann, a criminal returns to Berlin for a big-time art heist, only for Murphy’s Law to take effect, causing everything to frantically spiral out of control.
On the gritty periphery of Berlin, nervous professionals come together for a standard brief: pinch a valuable painting from a museum warehouse. But in this slow-burning, tense, and tight-lipped arthouse thriller from Berlin-school director Thomas Arslan (In the Shadows), getting the goods is the easy part. Deliberate with its tempo and its film cred, with a lot of Jean-Pierre Melville and a little Michael Mann, this one is boiled hard and, while subtle and psychological, entertaining as hell. Once the heist is pulled off, the real suspense begins: the shadowy crook who commissioned the job turns on the pros, and the museum, trying to get its property back, isn’t playing fair either. The art subplot, focusing on a small canvas by German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, is played just right, and Alexander Fehling (Inglorious Basterds) chews a delicious villain’s role to smithereens. With thieves’ honor and a lone black knight on the margins of the city, Scorched Earth is classic film noir, made in Germany today.
- Original Language Title: Verbrannte Erde
- Director: Thomas Arslan
- Principal Cast: Mišel Matičević, Marie Leuenberger, Alexander Fehling, Tim Seyfi, Bilge Bingül
- Premiere Status: North American
- Country: Germany
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 101 min.
- Producer: Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber, Anton Kaiser
- Screenplay: Thomas Arslan
- Cinematographers: Reinhold Vorschneider
- Editors: Reinaldo Pinto Almeida
- Music: Ola Fløttum
- Website: Official Film Website
- Filmography: Bright Nights (2017), Gold (2013), In the Shadows (2010), Vacation (2007)
- Language: German
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- International Sales: The Match Factory