"Dealer" is a German film from 1999, so it will soon have its 20th anniversary. The writer and director is Thomas Arslan, who recently made some waves with his 2013 film "Gold" with Nina Hoss. But this one we have here is among his early career efforts. You can see the talent here and there, but as a whole, he was still far from his best. Just like some other works from Arslan's early years, this one here was fairly short, namely not even 75 minutes and this already includes credits. Lead actor is Tamer Yigit and he is certainly less known today as some of his co-actors. Birol Ünel, who plays a cop, and Idil Üner, who plays the main characters girlfriend, have made it big afterward, mostly thanks to Faith Akin, but also to their talent of course. The rest of the cast here I am not familiar with at all. It is a mix of German and Turkish actors.

This is the story of a young man who gets deeper and deeper into the world of crime (drug dealing etc.) and cannot seem to stay away from it, despite trying on some occasions. Not even the efforts to help him by a police officer and his girlfriend contribute anything positive to the protagonist's mindset, almost the opposite. I think the best thing here is that the film feels very realistic from start to finish and does not include any forced happy moments or even a forced happy ending. But all in all, the bad is just more significant. I never felt that Arslan made the most of the story and its potential. Another problem is that the line delivery felt extremely wooden at times and while the actors did a good job on many occasions too, these weak moments from the cast hurt the movie a lot as it took all the flow out of the story. Eventually, I must say I am glad this one was so short. But I am also disappointed because it's obvious that there is some decent potential here in everybody and this potential was not even close in being fulfilled referring to the script and cast. Thumbs down from me. Not recommended.

The story is about Can, a young man with Turkish ancestry, who sells drugs on the streets of Berlin, and the troubles he gets with his occupation. His friends are all from the same drug-dealing environment, and the police are after him, and his drug-provider is a manipulative man, who has his own problems with the "bigger fish" that are above him, which also effects the life of Can.

The film didn't really interest me very much, as it didn't dig deeper into the mindset and everyday lives of the dealers, and only briefly showed some depth to the characters involved. After seeing the Danish Nicolas Winding Refn's hardcore "Pusher"-trilogy, this German effort seems almost like an ambitious school-project, that just lacked the budget and/or passion to make it better. It's a shame, because it seems like the makers really had an important message they wanted to convey, but in the end, it didn't really come through as strong as they probably would have wanted.

Overall, a decent story for a short feature, but stretched into full feature-film length, it just seems prolonged and gets a bit boring after a while. But still worth a watch if you like social-commentary, and some insight into the lives of young drug-dealers.