DER RÄUBER / THE ROBBER (2010)

From Austria, a chilling tru-crime story that could just as easily been called THE RUNNER (DER LÄUFER?) as THE ROBBER.  Charting the rise & fall of Johann Rettenberger, a new ex-con who uses his skill as a top Marathoner to facilitate a series of one-man bank robberies before literally running away scot-free.  With little reason behind his actions (cash left untouched under his bed), his behavior more hardwired DNA than malice, turning to violence & murder when trapped.  Unreadable and unstoppable on a normal human scale, logically amoral and utterly ruthless, he’s Nihilistic Killer Rabbit meets Existential Energizer Bunny.  Co-writer/director,  Benjamin Heisenberg stages riveting Buster Keaton worthy cityscape chases (on foot thru paths & parks/in cars via street & alleyways), kinetically edited into fugues of pursuit.  Andreas Lust is the riveting actor who makes it all believable, with both the single-mindedness and the bod to do it.  (Though not the concave butt typical of long-distance runners, impressively on display when he’s with the girl from the parolee employment service.)  Eventually, he’ll run out of steam, run out of luck & run out of caring, but the mad dash there is grimly compelling stuff.

DOUBLE-BILL:  *The Greeks always staged a comic ‘chaser’ after tragedy.  You can do much the same with COPS/’22, a comic short with Buster Keaton on the run from an entire city police force.