MOVIE REVIEW : STRANDED IN AN ‘OUT OF ORDER’ GERMAN ELEVATOR

Well, it’s back to the old elevator shaft for the fainthearted. In one of those blinding examples of synchronicity, both Holland and Germany, two nations we think of as orderly and well-functioning, have made thrillers about the failure of elevators.

If you saw the first one, “The Lift,” the Netherlands’ entry about a demonic killer elevator, there’s no need to see “Out of Order” (Cineplex). Or, if possibly you missed “The Lift,” there’s still no need to see “Out of Order,” whose only virtues are technical ones.

The film’s notes tell us that the two actors (Gotz George, who looks a bit like Robert Preston in his late 40s, and Hannes Jaenicke, as the sneering punk)--dangling, clawing, brawling in and above this marooned elevator--were photographed in an actual elevator shaft, hanging for as long as six minutes at a time, with and without safety harnesses. Waiting, no doubt, for a script worthy of their gymnastics.

It never arrived. Writer/director Carl Schenkel has stranded his whole cast, whose other two principals are Renee Soutendijk and character actor Wolfgang Kieling, 25 floors up without a safety net, without characters to play or a single reason to be there.

“Out of Order” is simply an excuse to get fewer characters together than you usually need for a disaster movie: the blonde; her boyfriend, older and macho ; the interloper, young and insolent, and the valued old employee who has just stolen/bombed/killed--take your pick--and is making his escape when the power fails.

Once gathered in this very little space, tempers fray as fast as cables, and lust bespangles every eye. The two younger men take to the elevator shaft. There, Jacques Steyn’s camerawork is equally hard on acrophobics and on those who like clear, understandable action. The editor, Norbert Herzner, would seem to deserve a mention in this matter as well.

When the Dutch made their elevator film, the impersonality of office buildings, the silent efficiency of the lift itself, the dehumanization of ultramechanized life were heightened as part of the eerie atmosphere. The result was a stomach-clutcher.

Apathy is the only danger in “Out of Order.” After they have sweated, teetered and fought to the death, the Germans spend the rest of their time in recrimination. Who, they want to know precisely, was to blame for all this?

Well, you might look for the names in the credits.

‘OUT OF ORDER’

A Sandstar Releasing Co. release of a Laura Film GMBH, Mutoskop Film GMBH, Maran Film GMBH and Dieter Geissler Filmproduktion GMBH. Producers Thomas Schuhly, Matthias Deyle. Director, screenplay Carl Schenkel. Additional dialogue Frank Gohre. Camera Jacques Steyn. Music Jacques Zwart. Editor Norbert Herzner. Costumes Uschi Zech. With Renee Soutendijk, Gotz George, Wolfgang Kieling, Hannes Jaenicke, Kurt Raab, Jan Groth.

MPAA-rated: R (persons under 17 must be accompanied by parent or adult guardian).

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.