"Rheingold" tells the fictional story of Xatar, the rapper and gangster from Bonn. First of all, it should be mentioned that you should not expect a biography. This film is more aligned with gangster epics like "Scarface," "Blow," etc. While it takes the artistic persona of Xatar and tells a very Hollywood-style story of his rise, it largely follows events that likely did happen, such as the gold heist or his prison album. However, I strongly doubt that much of it happened exactly as shown. If you watch the film with this mindset, you will have a good time. I really enjoyed the film. Emilio Sakraya shines in his role as Xatar, and you can tell he had a lot of fun playing him.

The first third, which focuses on Xatar's youth, is a bit cumbersome. It could have been shorter. Once the main story with the adult Xatar begins, the film picks up speed. The overall acting is a mixed bag. Emilio and his comrades do a pretty good job. However, there are other German actors who act too theatrically. Unfortunately, this is often the case with German films, where there is a lot of exaggerated gesticulation and mimicry.

All in all, I had a good time. Especially for a German film, "Rheingold" is really worth watching.

This movie is without a doubt one of the best movies I've seen these last couple of years. It sucks you in right from the beginning, it goes deep into subjects like immigration, love, money, fear and more. I think Xatar, with his crazy temperament, is portrayed well by Emilio, and the other cast was good as well. The movie is split into a number of parts in order to portray Xatar at different points in life - but I don't think it adds any confusion, it worked for me and the timeline was mainly clear, and if it was not clear at some points, it all made sense towards the end. The trailer leaves the impression that the movie is mostly about music, but I didn't see it that way - it's about the crazy life of Xatar and the trouble he's causing and constantly trying to get out of it just to get into more trouble. Despite being a drama (with the occasional action parts), there are a good amount of humorous scenes as well.

Image is really crisp, the movie has meaningful flashbacks & the soundtrack is amazing. Really recommend seeing it.

Once again we have fatih akin trying to depict immigrant life in germany from the lens of someone who "understands" the struggles and tribulations of worker class families.

It is his n-th attempt of doing so and it is neither getting more original nor any more accurate. What we have instead is a very distorted negative view of immigrants who appear to be weak minded and drawn to crime with the sole personality of being violent. It is outdated stereotypes on screen doing very little to show any relatable personality. After that you can understand that it is a drag to watch and not recommended.