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A deserting Nazi private and a local farmer’s daughter enact bloody revenge on plundering troops in this tightly-staged switch-your-brain-off entertainmentThis Netflix-backed action-driven story is effectively a spaghetti western that just happens to unfold in Germany in the last days of the second world war. (A sauerkraut or currywurst western?) Director Peter Thorwarth strives for that same pulpy-elegiac blend that made the films by Sergios Leone and Corbucci, Franco Nero and all the rest so compelling and repellent, with their squelchy violence and operatic conflict. Per the title, there’s indeed a lot of blood.It starts with Heinrich (Robert Maaser), a lowly private in a small platoon about to be hanged for desertion because he’s disgusted by his side’s actions and just wants to go home and find his kid. But, counter to the German stereotype of ruthless efficiency, the troops just drive off and leave him to die instead without making sure the job is finished. He’s cut down from the tree by plucky farmer’s daughter Elsa (Marie Hacke), who is protecting her homestead as well as her brother Paule (Simon Rupp). Paule has an unspecified learning disability, and Elsa has managed to shield him from being sent to the death camps like so many “defective” people were under the Nazis. But soon Heinrich and the siblings must defend the farm against troops who come looking for plunder. Continue reading...