Kennedy's Brain (2010)

"Kennedys Hirn" or "Kennedy's Brain" is a German mini-series from 2010 that consists of 2 parts of 90 minutes each. It is based on a Henning Mankell novel and a contender, probably a contender for most known career effort by screen writer Nils-Morten Osburg because of that and even for Swiss director Urs Egger it is among the definitely more known works of his long and prolific career. It is basically the usually generic story of one "strong-willed" woman against (almost) everybody. The title is pretty misleading and also not a good choice only because it may be a term used metaphorically in one significant situation in this film. The lead actress is Iri Berben and while she may not be as bad as Ferres or Furtwängler, I still think she is pretty overrated. In these 3 hours, she does what she needs to do, but her performance and character are far from as significant as they want us to believe. The film really starts with its weakest moment already when we see a man pretty much propose to her and want to settle down with her, but of course she is too independent to say yes and she is also a successful career woman etc.Then the story really begins after this rock-bottom prologue as we (and she) find out her son was killed in Africa and of course she won't accept the police report that it was suicide and she thinks it is murder and of course she is right. Also to make sure, she does not come off as racist, she makes friends with the African woman that was angry at her early on. So yes like in many other 3-hour films from Germany, there are major weaknesses in character writing and story-telling on many many occasions. Luckily, Ferch once again succeeds thanks to his physical acting and elevates the material. But the scene with him, the protagonist and the birthday call is among the film's weakest moments after Berben's character randomly gets picked to put a wire in the bad guy's office. Now that came out of nowhere and made no reasonable sense at all. Same can be said about the last 15-20 minutes and basically every investigation by Berben's character involving the scandal. When she investigates her son's death, it is still somewhat credible if we ignore some of the pathos and heroism and the father's death and some other stuff. This film is not a failure, but it comes pretty close at times. From a dramatic perspective, it is almost impossible to take it seriously, especially with the ridiculous and cringeworthy revelations and plot twists in the second half. And the bad thing is that the film wants to be taken seriously 100%. So yes, overall, the bad is easily more frequent than the good and I'd have preferred this to be a 2-hour film. Do not watch. Kennedy would probably be turning in his grave if he knew how shamelessly they used his name here to give the project any relevance that it fails to deliver completely. Make-believe of the worst kind.