Director: Dominik Graf
Screenplay: Christoph Fromm
Based on a Novel by: Uwe Erichsen
Starring: Götz George, Gudrun Landgrebe, Joachim Kemmer, Heinz Hoenig, Ralf Richter, Ulrich Gebauer
Country: Germany
Running Time: 118 min
Year: 1988
BBFC Certificate: TBC

After initially attempting to mirror the French New Wave films he adored in his early work, the German director Dominik Graf became inspired by the work of Robert Aldrich, after discovering he was shooting Twilight’s Last Gleaming in Munich in 1976. This helped Graf adopt a different, more direct approach to filmmaking, which worked wonders for the muscular TV movies and series he directed in the mid-80s.

In particular, Graf’s work for a police TV show called Der Fahnder helped the director hone his craft and prepare for his hit 1988 movie, The Cat (Die Katze). In fact, the director, writer and producer of that film were still working together on the series around the same time. They would often look to different crime novelists for inspiration for writing episodes of Der Fahnder but when they read Uwe Erichsen’s novel ‘Das Leben einer Katze’ (which translates to ‘The Life of a Cat’) they thought this would be better off being the feature film they were planning on making with star Götz George instead.

Being relatively fresh-faced, there must have been a lot of pressure on Graf in making The Cat, which had a fairly big budget for a German film and contains a lot of technically difficult situations to deal with. The shoot was even reportedly shut down for 2 days because the owners of the hotel used as the film’s primary location had enough of the ‘circus’ caused by the production.

Graf held his own though and The Cat proved to be a big hit in its home country, both with audiences and critics.

Fast forward to today and Radiance Films are releasing The Cat on Blu-ray, to help bring it to a wider contemporary audience. It sounded like a film I’d enjoy, so I requested a screener and my thoughts follow.

The film is entirely centred around a bold, cleverly planned bank heist. Junghein (Heinz Hoenig) and Britz (Ralf Richter) are the two robbers who enter the bank and hold several employees and customers hostage. However, orchestrating everything from the hotel across the way, Probek (Götz George) is the mastermind of the audacious heist. Being able to see what the police are up to from his vantage point and listening in with hi-tech equipment, Probek helps keep Junghein and Britz on top of the situation.

Also involved is Jutta (Gudrun Landgrebe), the unhappy wife of the bank’s manager, Filialleiter (Ulrich Gebauer). She’s Probek’s lover and has been giving background information to the criminal as well as playing a part in the ongoing game of cat and mouse with the police.

Heading the crime unit is Voss (Joachim Kemmer). Having previously put Junghein away for another robbery, he’s keen to put him back in jail and will stop at nothing to prevent the criminals from getting away with the money.

Bank heist films are certainly nothing new and weren’t back in the 80s either. The ‘mastermind on the outside’ angle adds a slight edge but The Cat stands out purely through the sheer quality of its filmmaking.

First and foremost, the film is as tight as a drum, wasting little time on setting up the bank job. Other than a few brief diversions as characters come in and out of the primary location, we stay in and around the bank and hotel from start to finish.

Graf and editor Christel Suckow expertly cut between the different settings during the heist, keeping the momentum and tension at boiling point throughout. You’d be hard-pressed to find a thriller that grips to this level without running out of steam.

The characters help hold your interest too. Probek is an *sshole but he’s so driven and Götz George is so charismatic in the part that you can’t help but get caught up in his mission. His accomplice Junghein is much more sympathetic, giving some heart to the film, despite doing some nasty things in places. The police aren’t shown to be infallible either. They perform some questionable acts to attempt to catch the criminals. The whole film plays out like a power struggle between the groups.

There are several interesting relationships between the characters too. You’re never quite sure whether Probek cares for Jutta or if he’s merely using her for the job. Plus, her relationship with her husband throws up some curveballs too. Then you’ve got Junghein and Probek, who have a history together and notably different personalities. The less experienced, wilder robber, Britz, adds an interesting dynamic on top of this. Finally, you’ve got the link between Junghein and Voss, due to the detective having previously arrested the criminal.

It all makes for an engrossing narrative and strong performances across the board keep the characters genuine. There’s a little humour thrown in here and there too, to add life alongside the colder, more brutal aspects of the film.

There’s also a strong technological element here and, other than the quality of the monitors and lack of mobile phones/GPS devices, it hasn’t dated badly at all. For added authenticity, the filmmakers used a number of real SPC officers in the production on-screen and in advisory positions.

The film is slickly shot too, with some gorgeous lighting and dynamic camera moves. The cinematographer was Martin Schäfer, who had worked with Wim Wenders on a number of his films. Sadly, Schäfer died of a heart attack not long after working on The Cat, aged only 44.

The film is well-crafted in every way. It all works like clockwork and sails along at a rapid pace. Tight as a drum and intensely gripping throughout, The Cat is up there with the best heist movies.

Film:

The Cat is out on 24th February on region-free Blu-Ray, released by Radiance Films. The picture is crisp, clean and natural-looking. My only slight concern was that one of the location/time stamp captions near the start of the film lies right at the bottom of the screen and seems to be getting slightly cropped. See the screengrab below. This may be intentional but it also might mean we’re not getting the entire image. I’ve used screengrabs throughout this review to give you an idea of how it looks, though these have been compressed. For audio, you get a choice of either stereo or 5.1. I opted for the latter and I thought it sounded great.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

– High-Definition digital transfer newly graded by Radiance Films and overseen by director Dominik Graf
– Interview with Dominik Graf (2024, 62 mins)
– Interview with screenwriter Christoph Fromm (2024, 31 mins)
– Interview with producer Georg Feil (2024, 31 mins)
– Select-scene commentary by Dominik Graf (2024)
– Trailer
– New English subtitle translation
– Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
– Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

There’s an hour-long interview with director Dominik Graf included on the disc. This is wonderful, beginning with how his filmmaking developed before going on to talk in detail about The Cat.

Producer George Feil is also interviewed. Again, this is fairly extensive, running just over half an hour. He talks about his background and how the filmmaking team behind The Cat was assembled before digging into the production itself. He’s honest about it being one of the most difficult shoots he’s been on, making for an eye-opening interview.

Writer Christoph Fromm is interviewed too. He talks with passion about the film and details why he thinks it’s so effective. It’s another excellent addition to the disc.

The selected scene commentary only runs for about 12 minutes in total but it’s an informative track that’s worth a listen.

I wasn’t provided with a copy of the booklet to comment on that, unfortunately.

So, yet again, Radiance have graced us with a top-class, underseen film and a host of valuable extras to back it up. Highly recommended.

Disc/package:

The Cat - Radiance
Film
Disc/Package
4.5Overall:
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