An incredibly well made piece of crap.

The characters were nobodies at the start of the film. They were nobodies until the very day they died. The only thing that made them stand out was their willingness to murder other people. People who were more remarkable than them in almost every way.
Starting the film with an overview of who these people were would have been rather useless, since there wouldn't have been much to say. What you need to know about them is shown in the film: They were killers. They were terrorists. They had their ideology. And they followed it through.
Still, as people, they were nothing.

I thought it was an excellent film, despite not being too clued up on the history of it. It intrigued me so much that I'm on the lookout for a book or two that covers the people and events portrayed here. Job done, as far as the film is concerned...there was a hell of a lot to condense into just over two hours and I think they did a very good job.

Thought the acting was top notch, too.

AndyG

"one man's terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. "

Can we please stop with this stupid, trite and overused quote? No, some terrorists aren't freedom fighters by any means-- they're just terrorists and criminals, which the RAF were.

I was actually Leftist-leaning in college (and even participated in a Marxist organization at one point), but there was universal revulsion for the Red Army Faction from all quarters. What sort of "freedom-fighting" do you think the RAF was engaged in, exactly?

They were obviously bitterly opposed to US actions in Vietnam (as many were) and saw the West German government as oppressive (but more than the Stasi or KGB?). But even if one accepts such a flimsy premise, how do they defend the Vietnamese (or stand up for the oppressed in general) by, uh, bombing a bunch of poor, working-class stiff newspapers staffers? Or shooting and killing a bunch of working-stiff cops? Or bombing some department store in Germany? Is there some red-line telephone between the German department-store manager and the US General Westmoreland in Vietnam?

It's precisely your kind of attitude-- so easily condoning obviously self-indulgent and criminal acts against innocent people who have absolutely nothing to do with the supposed conflict at hand or the cause being fought for-- which leads such causes to destruction. The RAF might've started out with justified indignation at the heavy-handed response to that student protest shown at the film's beginning-- but they were utterly incompetent at 1. choosing a more nonviolent (if still firm) path of protest that would have drawn broader support, and 2. if they were going to engage in political violence, at least trying to come up with a sensible justification for it. Not just the above examples, but also the hijacking of the Lufthansa jet (WTF do the passengers have to do with their cause in that case?), or the attack on the embassy in Sweden (again, how does killing a bunch of embassy workers back up their cause?) show how confused and blundering the RAF really were.

This film worked well because it showed that however sincere the RAF started out, they lapsed into self-indulgence and the self-justifying criminality of losers no matter what their ideology. And losers they were-- practically all the RAF members were killed or imprisoned, and the movement was destroyed, mainly because its members couldn't decide exactly what they were fighting for and against. The term "freedom fighter" could maybe have applied to the Irish Republican Army-- their methods were also reprehensible, and they caused far, far more damage than the Baader-Meinhof Gang ever came remotely close to (and thus should be condemned by right-thinking people). But the IRA at least had something of a cause in the N. Ireland occupation by England and Britain, which is why the IRA survived as a movement despite the atrocities they committed. Same for the Afghans who defeated the British and slaughtered the occupiers in the 1800's-- they killed quite a few camp followers (i.e. civilians, including Indians) in the process, and their methods were often very brutal, but at least there was something of a cause there (fighting a foreign occupier). The RAF had no such cause to speak of, and they wound up killing and wounding mostly the very people (working stiffs of all stripes, and contributors to society who in many ways might have sympathized with their indignation about Vietnam) who could have otherwise been their supporters. The RAF members were freedom fighters only in their personal fantasies. And the result is that rather than being seen as people willing to sacrifice for a cause (like e.g. John Brown, Michael Collins or Toussaint L'Ouverture), history rightfully casts the RAF as losers and criminals who did nothing more than rob banks and hurt a lot of innocent people who had no connection whatsoever to their confused ideology or the US war in Vietnam. They're pathetic and their movement collapsed because of it, a richly deserved outcome.