Oswald “Ossi” Schneider (Tim Wilde) simply cannot help himself. Barely out of prison, he is already planning his next coup. But he needs help to raid an iron foundry where hundreds of thousands of old Deutsche Mark coins are waiting to be saved from the furnace. Ossi therefore calls on old contacts and soon recruits brothers Axel (Götz Otto) and Bruno (Michael Brander), who scrape by running a sausage stand, along with archetypal macho Karl (Stefan Jürgens).
It does not stop there. Ossi is a genuinely good-hearted person and not exactly discreet. Before long, eleven losers—from a doped athlete to a despised former Stasi officer—have come together, ready to pull off the greatest coup ever staged between Dresden and Dessau.
Oliver Mielke is responsible for this somewhat different, deeply East German and naturally tongue-in-cheek response to Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean trilogy. As a producer, he created ratings hits including bullyparade and Tramitz and Friends; here, in addition to producing and co-writing, he directs a feature film for the first time. He succeeds in bringing a wonderful ensemble cast to peak form.
The cast includes Tim Wilde (Manitou’s Shoe) as the sly and sometimes rather hapless gang leader; Stefan Jürgens (Harte Jungs); rising star Jule Ronstedt (Grave Decisions) as a frustrated cash courier; Bond villain Götz Otto (Tomorrow Never Dies) as a former East German elite athlete and doping offender; and pop star Sasha, a.k.a. Sascha Schmitz, who follows his brief appearance as a motorcycle rocker in Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps by demonstrating his true acting abilities.
Together with the rest of the cast, they make OSSI’S ELEVEN an entertaining film highlight featuring robust dialogue, imposing prefabricated tower blocks and, above all, delightfully comic characters.
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