Run Lola Run review

 Number 464 on the top 1000 films of all time is the German experimental hyperlink thriller 'Run Lola Run.'

Lola 's (Franka Potente) boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) has just lost the the 100,000 Deutsche marks he owes to a fearsome drug crime lord. Lola has twenty minutes to help him find the money otherwise he will be killed. However, when her first attempts end in failure, she has the chance to try again and again until she succeeds.

Run Lola Run had a good if thin concept spreader even thinner over an eighty-minute run time. Thankfully, it wasn't any longer otherwise it would have been stretched to breaking point. If anything 'Run Lola Run' would have done better as a forty-minute Twilight Zone episode.

Run Lola Run employs a hyperlink structure allowing Lola multiple opportunities to achieve her goals, starting from scratch over and over again. We see the theme of chance put under a microscope as different events play out differently in each time. It's a cool idea, but not one that can sustain a whole film. Even an eighty-minute one.

And that's even without considering the central plot of Lola and her boyfriend having to find 100k in twenty minutes - a seemingly impossible task. So impossible, it made it difficult for me to suspend my disbelief.

It didn't help that I didn't care for either Lola or Manni or their relationship. I first saw Franke Potente in the Bourne Identity where, despite being Matt Damon's love interest, she had very little romantic chemistry with him. The same applied for Potente and Bleibtreu. As their relationship was central to the film, it wasn't good that I didn't care for it.

And I just didn't care for this film. It was an interesting concept, but it became repetitive after eighty minutes. Thank God, it wasn't any longer.