Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Der Große Bellheim" is a German miniseries consisting of four parts from over 20 years ago. It runs for between 7 and 8 hours and comes from the German king of miniseries movie-making Dieter Wedel. He also made "Die Affäre Semmeling", "Der König von St. Pauli" and "Der Schattenmann" and is known for working with Mario Adorf (he turns 85 this year) repeatedly just like he does in this one here. Adolf plays an aging warehouse tycoon who seems to lose more and more power, but keeps to comeback all the time and puts his enemies back in their places. The biggest of them is played by Heinz Hoenig in a good portrayal. They find out he is the main evil guy at the end of the second installment. The third part also includes many references to Bellheim's private life, including all kinds of relationships with women. The helpers to Bellheim are played by Willi Quadflieg (fun to watch after an acting break of seven years) and Hein Schubert ("Ein Herz und eine Seele"). Annemarie Düringer is also in this film and she already was with Adorf in his big breakthrough "The Devil Came at Night" from almost 60 years ago.It will certainly help if you have some economic knowledge as this movie has lots of references which will make it easier for you to understand the core of the story. For example, there is an industrial espionage sub-plot relevant throughout all four parts. What I did not like that much was the story of Ingrid Steeger's character. Not only is she not a particularly gifted actress, but basically all she does in her scenes is being a whiny little nuisance and I definitely could have done without her entire storyline. Unfortunately also, it becomes a bit repetitive in terms of intrigues planned against Bellheim as the film goes on and on and he is basically always fighting some enemies who try to take him out from a financial perspective. There is a little Gerhard Schröder cameo from a couple years before he became German Chancellor, but was already very present in German politics. And a sub-plot deals with environment and the pollution thereof. And, as expected, in the end Bellheim beats them all although there were points where I wondered how he is going to do it, especially when Hoenig's character basically bought shares of Bellheim's company, so is there any way? The company gets strong meaning Hoenig's character would profit from it too. The final answer are when Bellhaim's folks find out about criminal activities from Hoenig's character. In the final episode, death is also a dominating factor in terms of Bellheim's father and Bellheim's pals struggling with health. Well, they did that for the whole series you could say and you're probably right. However, we also see the decline of Hoenig's character's health.All in all, it is an okay miniseries, but I have to say the longer it goes on the more it dragged also and got repetitive. Finally, another mention of Hoenig who was on-par with Adorf, if not better. I recommend this miniseries to those with an interest in economy or who don't mind really really long films and have an interesting in German cinema. Everybody else should better stay away.
michaelwillner
This movie shows in an excellent way the differences in doing economy between the young generation management and the old generation in a big-shop-company. The older business people retired already and their life is boring but getting this new job to rescue the company for bankruptcy they find a new sense in their life. The relationship between these old people is very complicate because they were competitors in former times. Some dialogs in the movie are very amusing.
