Terror Docudrama Baader-Meinhof Impresses Critics

Critics are largely impressed with Germany's blood-drenched epic The Baader-Meinhof Complex, following the group of young, sexy radicals who terrorized the country for years. A selection of reviews:

• It's a "taut, unnerving, forcefully unromantic film," writes New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, who praises director Uli Edel for not "putting the faction on the couch." Their story of "curdled idealism has been told before, but rarely this well."

• For J. Hoberman of the Village Voice, "the movie has an undeniable sweep," with state and terrorist violence spiraling into "tit-for-tat madness." But things get messy by the end, and the film "would have been immeasurably helped by the use of informational intertitles."
• Edel captures the gang's "confusion and heady rebellion," but also "their fatal cluelessness," writes Star-Ledger critic Stephen Whitty. The film drags in the last act, but Martina Gedeck, star of The Lives of Others, is "superb" as the journalist who joins the young radicals on their campaign of terror.
  

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