MovieChat Forums > Knallhart (2006) Discussion > Question about the ending ****Contains s...

Question about the ending ****Contains spoilers****


Sooooo....did Michael end up in jail? The ending didn't seem to give it away.
Anyone who read the book or could confirm the intentions of the director?

reply

Actually... I think he shot himself in the foot instead of Erol's neck. So he tricked Hamal and his people and didn't end up in jail. Matches good with the Fox who gets away unharmed as a metaphor and the two detail shots of the shoe.
But I can't confirm this, just an impression of mine... If so, Buck did a great job in tricking the audience too, as he is not very clear in this!

reply

No, he shot the person. You saw the body jump up from the impact of the bullet. And he walked quite a ways having a whole in his foot. The blood on his shoes came from the splatter of the other person.

reply

Well, with that settled my original question still remains.

reply

hi, i wrote the script with the writer of the novel, so i guess i can tell you what the intentiosn were. he ends up in jail. the director put in the last scene that looks like his mothers comes to rescue him. that's not right. and he didn't shoot himself in the foot. that would have been rather dumb. the reason why the director is showing the bloody shoe is just that you see at the beginning of the film here comes serious stuff. i hope this helps.

reply

This is just my opinion: I dont think Michael would end up in jail. He told everything (we see this in the beginning), so he could give valuable testimony about the drug dealers. Otherwise it would be easy for the gang to kill him in jail, and the murder of Erol was kind of forced (I mean, the guys wait for hours until he shoots him).
@ yveslanois: I think you and the team did a great job. To me, "Knallhart" was the best movie I saw in 2006.

reply

gracias very much. we are on to the next script. it's gonna be a road movie. hope the roads stay clear.

reply

Dude awesome movie!!! Thanks

reply

I haven't read the book so all I can do is give an account of my interpretation

so, anyway, the blood on his shoe was obviously not his but of the guy he shot; plus, he put some shirt on the guy's head so obviously he was dead, it's all pretty clear to me

as a whole, the boy's shoes were a symbol which permeated the entire unfolding of the plotline, following its different stages

first, Polischka was wearing expensive shoes bought by his mother's rich lover, then he borrowed a pair of old cheap shoes from his new friends, an finally, he could afford to buy new ones with the money he earned from selling drugs, which ended up covered in blood

it's pretty obvious that the different pairs of shoes mirrored the shifts in the boy's social status and the different life stages he was going through

the final scene looked like he just went to the police and turned the whole gang down; at least that's how it looked since they only showed him in the police station and not in prison or anything like that

anyway, the movie was enjoyable to watch

reply

gracias. may the next rise and shine as the first.

reply

The next? are they making a sequel?

reply

I just watched this movie but the recording stopped after Micheal shot the boy and got in the car with Hamal.
What happened afterwards?
Did he go directly to the police after that?

reply

Thanks for awesome movie.

I never experienced somehing like this myself but as far as I compare what I heard about "Neuköln" and problems rising up like that, I guess there must be someone working on the plot having a lot experience arround there. I would like to know weather someone did so. Are there good docus about this topic?

I'm just wondering if there are any governmental solutions that will make the change.

reply

I just saw the movie yesterday and am wondering what happens to Michael in the end? We see his mother came (with tears in her eyes), they hug and walked out together.. What will happen to him?? It's not clear in the film (I hate it when directors do this). Someone please enlighten me!

reply

My opinion is:

1) The blood on Michael's shoes is Errol's one.
2) The mother brings at home Michael and the police will arrest the turkish narcos; Michael is not adult and he will surely send to social assistance that will help him and his mother also with help from Mr. Gerber (the policeman).
3) Michael's life will be irreversibly changed: he killed a man, father of hopeless sons, but Michael's will be a more careful mother with her own son, also understanding that a good man to fall in love is not the rich one....maybe she will pay more attention to Mr. Gerber, who should be a possible new worth man able to be a good father for Michael. In the last scene the door closes, the closing door means that a story ends and another one opens with more consciousness.
4) Like Michael of "The Reader", Michael of "Knallhart" will be an adult at the end of the film after tragic events, finally catching full consciousness of such events: infact the meaning of the death of Errol is not so much different from the death of Hanna Schmitz in "The Reader".

The discussion is open to other contributors......




reply

The book ends with the same concept of no one knowing, except that Michael's mother doesn't come to the station; he goes with Gerber to see the body of Errol and tells Gerber that all he wanted was his peace. They both get into Gerber's car, and no one knows what happens next. He probably wouldn't be in too much trouble, considering his age and the circumstance, though.

reply