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 he plot is set in Berlin, where a maniac is
preying upon people with intricate tattoos, harvesting their skin and
leaving them for dead. The detective assigned to the case, Minks
(Christian Redl) is a brutal, uncompromising thug who blackmails
fresh-faced rookie Schrader (August Diehl, also in the German horror
sequel "Anatomy
2") into helping him after he is caught red-handed with
recreational drugs. As the two investigate the growing number of victims,
they are pulled into a seedy underworld of S&M and extreme body
piercing, where rich collectors pay high prices for the ultimate flesh
trophies. However, the closer they seem to get to the killer, the more it
becomes apparent that he too is watching them, and playing his own twisted
game with their lives and sanity.
The idea of an unlikely pairing
of policemen facing off against a mysterious killer is one of the most
overused ideas in modern cinema, though to Schwentke's credit, he does
manage to avoid the worst of the 'cop buddy' clichés. Minks and Schrader
are a fairly disparate couple, never in any danger of becoming fast
friends or dating each other's sisters, and the script does a nice job of
providing each with some interesting character details, even if some of
these are exploited for cheap twists in the film's latter stages.
As should be fairly obvious, the plot as a whole is
overly familiar and predictable, and there are no surprises in store for
any viewer who has seen "Se7en" or any of its legions of
progeny. Schwentke seems to be under the unfortunate impression that the 7
years between "Tattoo" and Fincher's film have served to wipe
viewers' memories clean, and so he shows an almost astounding lack of
shame when lifting crucial narrative details. Although the whole 'tattoo
collector' premise is a new angle, everything else about the film, right
through to the downbeat ending, is decidedly stale.
This is also true of the visuals, which are
predictably wet and gloomy, illuminated only by occasional flashes of
neon. Schwentke's problem is that he takes things a little too far, and
piles on so much murk that the viewer is likely to suffer eye strain while
trying to work out what is going on. Although this does make the
proceedings reasonably atmospheric, and even quite creepy in places, when
the final credits role, the overall impression is that of having spent
nearly two hours in a dank, gloomy tunnel rather than having experienced
any kind of thrill ride.
Nevertheless, there is a fair amount to enjoy about
"Tattoo". Although his direction is highly derivative, and his
sense of pacing is at times questionable, Schwentke does have a few tricks
of his own, and also manages to throw in a few effective scenes involving
skin art, most notably when a woman wears a white coat during a rainstorm,
gradually revealing what lies beneath. Similarly, whilst the plot fails to
hold any surprises, it is inoffensive enough, and if the viewer is in the
right mood, then it acts as a guilty pleasure or lazy homage rather than a
blatant cheat.
The film's greatest strength, at least for some
viewers, will be the fact that it is inventively sadistic, and contains a
good amount of gore. Schwentke has a cruel, unflinching eye for human
suffering, and there are a number of genuinely unpleasant scenes of
autopsies and skin being removed. Such sequences give the film a huge
boost, and serve well to keep the viewer interested during the many
occasions where the pace drops to a crawl. Although these are not quite
enough to make "Tattoo" a good film, they do at least lift it
into the category of 'entertaining', which is far more than can be said
for the majority of similar efforts.
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