Chiko

Chiko is a young Turkish-German in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg, a tough district by the harbour. He is tired of selling small amounts of weed on the street. He wants respect, money and a big apartment, and he is ready to do anything to get them. With his best friend Tibet, he gets close to Brownie, the local drug boss, and quickly climbs the ladder. But Tibet has his own problems and his own reasons to need money, and in this world loyalty is the first thing you lose.

Özgür Yıldırım directed this first feature with Fatih Akin as producer, and it has the same raw energy as Akin's early films. The camera is restless, the dialogue is fast, rough street German, and the violence is sudden and brutal. Denis Moschitto is very strong as Chiko, ambitious and cold, and Moritz Bleibtreu is chilling as Brownie, a boss who smiles while he humiliates people.

It follows a familiar shape, the rise and fall of a young gangster, and you can feel the influence of Scarface and of Mean Streets. But the setting is fresh and specific, a Germany that rarely appears on screen, and the friendship at its centre gives it real weight. Hard, fast and painful. A strong genre film from the German-Turkish generation that Akin opened the door for.