Tattoo (2003) Synopsis:
Tattoo (2003) Movie Review:
With extremely heavy echoes of David Fincher's Seven, this German thriller at least has style and grisliness to show for its efforts. Marc (Diehl) is a rookie cop who also enjoys his drug-fuelled after-hours club life until the veteran Detective Minks (Redl) blackmails him into joining the homicide squad. Minks has ulterior motives: He's obsessed with finding his daughter (Schwiers), who disappeared into the club scene some time ago. He's also a hothead, revenge-obsessed thug who should not be on the force! Anyway, the two eventually settle into an investigation of the underground traffic in tattoos, which often means killing the bearer so the artwork can be, erm, removed. Into this grisly world they go, and as they get closer to the elusive person who runs it they encounter a top collector (Leysen) and a sexy woman (Brennicke) who's clearly hiding something. That Marc falls for her doesn't help.
Dark and interesting, the film looks very good and has an intriguing enough plot that we stay connected to it. Diehl is solid in the focal role--a nice enough guy we can identify with, although the script never develops his character full enough to make him truly sympathetic. In fact, a general lack of depth undermines writer-director Schwentke's several attempts to add an emotional punch. He uses some of the exact same story elements Fincher used in Seven, but without as strong an effect. All of the performances are excellent, despite underdefined characters (Schwentke was obviously going for the enigmatic vibe). And he films it extremely cleverly.
But it's the gore factor that makes the film unsettling--not a scary story. We flinch away from what he might show us next, although it's never too explicit, really. And without a sense of personal tragedy it never gets under our skin, so to speak.
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Tattoo (2003) review written by: Rich Cline
12th October, 2008 
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