A lovesick ex-con. An Ukrainian prostitute. Her unctuous pimp. An eager police officer. His alienated wife. A bank robbery. An accidental shooting. Anger. Guilt. Revenge. Suspense. Deception. Sex, self-loathing, and even some hard-fought redemption. Everything about the first half of this Austrian film, directed with empathy and precision by Götz Spielmann, is undermined by everything that doesn’t happen in the second, and that’s what makes it so damn good (and so fucking scary). As Roger Ebert has written, “Rare is the thriller that is more about the reasons of people instead of the needs of the plot.” Indeed, this is truly a compelling and moving psychological character-study (I’ll even go so far as to describe it as Dostoevskian). I was moved to tears on more than one occasion; there is a scene toward the end, for example, when one character tosses a useless object into a lake just as a whoosh of wind whips across the surface of the water as if smoothing out all that has come before. Was it the luck of the moment or a carefully calibrated cinematic stunt? To be honest, I could give a shit as the moment stuck, worked it’s magic, and left me, if only for a moment, breathless. This movie deserves to be seen.