Oliver Kienle’s Sixty Minutes is based on a simple premise. Octavio/Octa (Emilio Sakraya), a rising mixed martial artist is on the verge of his first big fight. Unfortunately, the match happens to take place on his daughter’s birthday. He promises her and his ex that he will make it on time with a cake and gift as soon as the fight finishes. But no one is buying it. He either never shows up or is always late. His daughter is in tears, his ex, livid. Meanwhile, his training crew and friend/manager are geeing him up for the bout. As he makes his way through the boisterous arena, his ex calls with an ultimatum: Get here in an hour for your daughter’s party or lose custody forever. He darts out of the place without skipping a beat, puts a timer on his watch for sixty minutes, and heads to his intended destination across Berlin. There’s one small catch, though. The betting mafia has a lot of money riding on this fight. Several shady deals have taken place without Octa’s knowledge. They will get him to enter the octagon in one way or another.
Director – Oliver Kienle
Cast – Emilio Sakraya, Dennis Mojen, Marie Mouroum, Paul Wollin, Florian Schmidtke
Streaming On – Netflix
If you consider its genre, Sixty Minutes is an altogether okay film. The stunts and action sequences are of a certain high standard, the acting isn’t half-bad. The problem is its one-dimensionality. The protagonist must go from point A to B to meet his child, with an array of bad guys in his way…forcing him to take part in a fight that’s rigged. He’s on foot, in cabs, in the metro, on the move constantly. He’s also on his earpiece while at it. Between staving off the betting mafia and their minions with his fists and feet, he is coordinating the pick-up of a special birthday cake and surprise gift (a shelter kitten). Octa has his heart in the right place but it appears the universe is not on his side. He wishes to be left alone and is forced to use his MMA skills to defend himself. He hasn’t signed up for this, surely.
Action-wise, there’s not much to complain about. The choreography is as true to life as can be. But it is in the depth department that the film falters. Sixty Minutes pushes this narrative about fatherhood, absenteeism and redemption. Octa has this guilty look on his face throughout, ostensibly because he has not been the model parent. His friend and manager calls a spade a spade. “This is what happens when you knock your girlfriend up at 19.” But that was seven or eight years ago, and he hasn’t been able to get his act together. While some of the themes attempt to go down complicated emotional roads, their treatment doesn’t always match up. The film and its writing get caught in a Catch-22. Does it wish to be an out-and-out action flick or an action-drama with deeper undertones?
One scene towards the end makes a powerful impression. A bruised and battered Octa retreats to his parents’ home. His mother is worried for his safety, even though he divulges precious little. She tells him that his ex will not allow him to see Leonie (his daughter) in this state. He asks whether he was always such a mess with her. His father doesn’t mince words: “He’s not a mess. He’s scared. Of nothing to offer. Of being a shitty father. Of doing everything wrong. So, he runs away. And abandons his child. For way too long. Because he’s trying to prevent her from becoming like him. If you want Leonie to be better off, then you have to do things differently than how you experienced them. Then you don’t run away. Then you’ll get it together. And you’ll finally be there for her.” This heartfelt, moving exchange is the best the film has to offer, encapsulating in a matter of minutes the pain that lies deep within Octavio’s being. The emotional heft the writing attempts to bring to the fore hits the intended mark here, with the acting (of all three characters) following through. I daresay that Sixty Minutes is worth watching once for this part alone.
For the long and short of it, Oliver Kienle’s action drama is a hit-and-miss sort of effort. It flashes brightly here and there with a message that tries to go beyond its standard ‘fists of fury’ fare. The acting holds its own under the circumstances, but the film ends up being average owing to many constraints. One watch, maybe? A big maybe, at that.
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