Die Halbstarken

This film is slightly redeemed by a decent ending, if you can stick around that long.

Horst Buchholz (billed as Henry Bookholt to fool us, which doesn't work) plays the leader of a gang, and for most of the film, they do nothing but terrorize the audience with tedium. Buchholz' girlfriend is played by Karin Baal, who is cute and is a fairly decent actress. She seems somewhat torn between Buchholz and his brother, but she is really playing them both. The plot, which is finally revealed after about an hour, involves Buchholz and his pals robbing a mail truck. They end up with squat, and everyone gets ticked off at Buchholz. In one final attempt to score, Buchholz leads his gang of losers to rob a house owned by one of the gang's bosses, a guy named Garezzo. The German guy playing Garezzo tosses out a few Italian words in an attempt to convince us he is really not a German guy playing an Italian guy.

The first six minutes of this film are very bizarre, as we see lots of teenage boys cavorting in and around an indoor swimming pool. Oh, there are a few girls as well, but the camera seems to linger on the very short and tight bathing trunks that the guys are wearing. The guys are all well-toned, with bulging quadriceps, hard abs, a hint of gluteus maxima, the pool water glistening like dew off their Adonis-like physiques ... oh, sorry, my mind just wandered for a moment.

The acting is acceptable, but it can't save this film. Buchholz actually shines in a few scenes, but that's only because the light is reflected off his leather pants.