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Road movie . . .

Ronald Scheer | Los Angeles | 11/29/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Turkish-German director Fatih Akin says he was inspired by Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" when he made this film, which is fair enough, but Hollywood road movies like "It Happened One Night" more easily come to mind as you watch this unlikely story of quarreling travel companions destined to fall in love. And this is the flip side of two pretty heavy coins - Akin, who is better known for his "Head-On" about the desperate lives of Turks in Germany, and German cinema itself, not often known for light-hearted romantic comedy. Yet, most of the time it works. It's sexy, funny, and fairly full of surprises, as our callow young hero, who after a one-night unconsummated tryst with a stranger, follows her from Hamburg to Istanbul. And tagging along is the more adventurous girl truly smitten with him (opposites in this case attracting true to formula).

Suspension of disbelief is in order from beginning to end, but most of the time you say "what the heck" and go along with it. It's classic, as Akin says in an interview. The hero must go on a quest to kill a monster, which in this case is within himself - his own timidity and suppressed emotions. A movie that's really more for the young at heart, it's probably a little too tame for real 20-somethings."