THE COLONY is a slow-moving and largely dullish real-life thriller set at the time of Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973. The one-dimensional and miscast Emma Watson plays an unsympathetic heroine who goes undercover in a bizarre religious cult in order to rescue her kidnapped boyfriend, as played by a wasted Daniel Bruhl. It turns out that Michael Nyqvist, of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO fame, is the weirdo cult leader who Watson must go up against. I appreciate this movie's realism but as a film it really fails to engage the senses, lacking the requisite suspense and depth for something like this to succeed. Watson struggles from the outset and never convinces for a moment, although some of the supporting players work hard. The ending feels oddly lacklustre and I feel that a documentary would have made this subject much more interesting.

In 1973, revolution is in the air in Chile. Lena (Emma Watson) is a flight stewardess. Her boyfriend Daniel (Daniel Brühl) is sympathetic to President Salvador Allende when the military under General Augusto Pinochet stage a coup. The German couple is picked up by the military. Daniel is sent off to be re-educated. Lena tracks him to the religious cult Colonia Dignidad run by Paul Schäfer (Michael Nyqvist) and decides to join. The cult keeps its members especially the women under violent control. They are supported and work for the secret police.

It starts with good interest but little nuggets of problems are already laid. It has nice intensity with the political revolution and coup. Lena and Daniel confused me a little. I assumed Lena as a foreigner but I thought she was English. I also assumed Daniel to be a local. The start has a great intensity but it's also a little confused which it doesn't spend the time fixing. Then it goes into the cult which sends the movie into a different space. Finally it goes back into the thriller mode. The different tones and a bit of confusion keeps this from being good.

"Colonia" or "Colonia Dignidad" is a German English-language movie that premiered last year, but hit cinemas mostly this year, in 2016. It runs for slightly under 2 hours and was written and directed by Florian Gallenberger. Gallenberger won an Oscar in the short film category and has not really been that prolific in the last 15 years since then. And his films always had a foreign impact since then, such as "John Rabe" for example. And just like his Oscar-winning effort, this one here has some Spanish parts as well. It is about a young couple in Chile in the Pinochet years. The political background is elaborated on in the first parts of the film, but the heart and soul are really all the scenes taking place directly at Colonia Dignidad. The characters there also play a much bigger role than the supporting characters early on, the friends of the couple.

Lets take a look at the actors. Emma Watson is the lead here undoubtedly. It is her story, her love and her suffering. Even if Brühl is missing during the early scenes of Watson's character's presence at Colonia Dignidad, then he is still a co-lead and he is in over 75% of the film too. The two play their characters pretty well. I am sometimes not the biggest Brühl fan, but here he convinced me and Watson proved that she can carry a film like this as well. The two also had pretty great chemistry. The supporting characters were at least as good. Michael Nyqvist (definitely a front runner for Best Supporting Actor at the next German Film Awards) was a perfect choice as the villain here and he played his scary and unlikeable role so-so well. I guess he was the MVP for me. Richenda Carey works nicely as well and is pretty memorable. The other actors and actresses who played smaller parts were good too and the only reason I don't mention them explicitly is because their roles really weren't that major in the whole scheme of things.

Gallenberger had exactly two tasks to succeed here. The first would be depict the historical context in a way that keep audiences interested no matter how vast their knowledge about the subject is beforehand. The second task would be create characters and a story within the historical context that makes us care for them. I believe he succeeded brilliantly in both areas. I applaud him for his effort here. I personally knew the very basic facts about Colonia Dignidad and the way this organization was depicted here certainly raised my interest. I am not sure how accurate everything is, for example I doubt he was really gonna be killed the very day after they fled, but it is not a problem at all if there are sequences that were added for dramatic purpose. Still, a very large percentage of the film is accurate.

My favorite moment of the film is probably the two holding hands when they see each other again and Brühl's character showing his girlfriend this way that he has not gone insane. They took the risk to be seen and exposed because their feelings for one another were just too strong to deny them. This moment was a thing that so many romance films try to achieve, but most of them come short: a truly beautiful moment of affection and harmony in a world of drama around them. I found it much better than all the scenes with the two being together later on, but it's not as if these were bad at all either. What was the film's weakness? Was there any? I maybe would not have gone with the super-dramatic ending and the chase sequences at the airport. Possibly one plot twist to many to show us the German ambassador as a fraud. i understand that it is reality, but I still would not have minded without that really dramatic ending. I would have preferred the flight being successful and them boarding the airplane together as an ending, even if it less spectacular. The movie had enough brilliant edge-of-seat moments that delivered more than enough thrill for the runtime of slightly under 120 minutes. But this is just a minor criticism. I think this film here is a really brilliant achievement. I was very positively surprise. You really need to see it, especially if you have an interest in 20th century history.