Jan (Daniel Brühl) and Peter (Stipe Erceg) are The Edukators, a revolutionary duo who break into the lavish houses of the rich to let them know that “Your Days of Plenty Are Numbered.”  They do not break in to steal, but merely to rearrange the furniture and leave notes.  Their pranks are intended to make people feel less safe in their high security gated communities.

Jan is the idealist, perhaps too much so for his own good.  He is uncompromising and allows nothing to hinder him.  When Jule (Julia Jentsch) offers him a joint one night, he hesitates, afraid that it will kill his “revolutionary energy.”  Peter believes in their movement, but he does not see things in the black and white way that Jan does.  He steals a Rolex from the scene of their latest break-in with the idea of selling it, the proceeds going to further their ends.  Jan will here nothing of it; he throws the watch out the window as the two cruise the Berlin streets.

In the middle of these two young Edukators is Jule, Peter’s girlfriend; she ends up falling for Jan when Peter is out of town.  “It just happened,” she later says, after Peter finds out.  Jule lives with the two guys, but she is clueless as to how they actually spend their nights.  Clueless, that is, until Jan shows her one night.  With Peter in Barcelona, Jan squires Jule around the city, talking and eventually opening her up to their real work.  Jule is excited by the idea, and convinces Jan to commit another break in right there on the spot.

Jule is in an interesting situation, perhaps the best metaphor for what the film is really about.  We learn that she was recently in a car accident, the other principal in the accident a rich man in a Mercedes Benz.  The guy sued and put Jule in debt to the tune of one hundred thousand Euros.  She grinds out her days as a wage slave to pay it off, essentially a slave.  She does not see a way out, but Jan convinces her that her predicament is exactly what he is railing against.  A car to a man like that is chump change.

And guess who owns the how to which Jule and Jan break in.  His name is Hardenberg (Burghart Klaußner), and when we see his garage we see that Jan was right: the man has three high-end cars.  They trash the place and get away with it.  They only run into trouble when Jule leaves her cell phone and they have to go back.  Hardenberg shows up, and the three of them (Peter is involved at this point) kidnap Hardenberg.  They retreat to an Alpine cabin owned by Jule’s uncle, unsure where they are going.

The Edukators is the perfect film for our times, which is a shame in a way because it barely scratched the surface of its potential.  While not director Weingartner’s first film, it feels like it; he uses long conversational scenes to beat the viewer over the head with the point he wants to make.  When Hardenberg and his three captors arrive at the cabin, the two sides literally talk it out.  In the process we find out, somewhat predictably, that Hardenberg is an old revolutionary himself, part of the 1968 generation and a member of SDS who, at the time, would have loved to have gotten his hands on someone like himself.  Hardenberg was into the whole freewheeling, free love, commune living sixties lifestyle.  But, as he says, life happened; he got married, started a family that he had to support, and before he knew it he was voting conservative.  It happened so gradually that even Hardenberg seems amazed by his transformation.  Between Jan’s musings on revolution and why there are no more youth movements – it’s been done before, people tried and failed – and the last half of the film, which devolves into a long conversation, The Edukators is long on talking and short on doing; it is as if Weingartner wants simply to lure us in so he can give us a lecture.  The lecture is an interesting and vital one, but it is a lecture nonetheless.

The film’s other major flaw is its pacing.  It is a little over two hours in length, and it could stand to be much shorter; the film drags in places, especially towards the end.  Half an hour could have been trimmed and the effect would have been the same.

The Edukators is, despite its flaws, a timely, important film.  The actors do well with the material, and the dialogue is sharply written.  The film is well done over all, but it does not go very far with the material.

Film Rating: êêê1/2  (out of 5)