This true story about one of the many tunnel escape attempts under the Berlin wall in the 60s provides all the excitement of an escape movie, given extra depth and resonance by its real life genesis... a superb film

Full Review | Aug 3, 2008

Richter makes wonderful if obvious use of the wall and the tunnel as built-in metaphors for our struggle for human connection and dread of helplessness and change.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 23, 2005

Well-cast and sporadically gripping.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 22, 2005

It is the kind of superbly crafted, intelligent entertainment -- a classic suspense thriller -- that nowadays is as welcome as it is rare.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 15, 2005

Richter gives a raw, frank but sophisticated account of the excruciating logistics of this great escape, and the appalling, inspiring blend of betrayal and courage that attended the group's herculean efforts.

Full Review | Sep 15, 2005

A true story few people will know, and it's told with a warm, crafty efficiency that makes for wonderful entertainment.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 2, 2005

It's a gripping great-escape yarn of the sort we don't see much anymore.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 2, 2005

The Tunnel proved to be too exciting for mere broadcast

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 1, 2005

Either as history at its most inspiring or moviemaking at its most exciting, The Tunnel is a trip.

| Aug 19, 2005

It's so well told that you'll be biting your nails until the film's final few minutes.

| Aug 18, 2005

There are few moments when you're not totally absorbed by the film.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 24, 2005

Overlong and a bit overcooked...but it's also properly grueling.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 23, 2005

Based on a true story from the late 1950s, this thrilling drama looks at the extraordinary lengths taken by a group of West Berliners to dig a tunnel under the city's barbed-wire border with East Berlin.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 10, 2005

riddled with slow pacing, melodrama and viewer fatigue

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 1, 2005

Director Roland Suso Richter maintains tension for 2 1/2 hours, even though the resolution is almost surreal.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 29, 2005

Richter's brisk direction keeps us riveted through the suspenseful finish of his vivid history lesson.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 29, 2005

Genuinely gripping, balancing the travails of constructing the tunnel against the characters' stories with considerable skill.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2005

Roland Suso Richter's darkly atmospheric film recounts the effort of a group of people to dig a tunnel under the Berlin Wall.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 28, 2005

It's distressing to learn how much German television looks like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

Full Review | Apr 26, 2005

The film picks up steam as the tunnel nears completion -- thanks, in part, to a Hollywood film crew that pays for the rights to the tunnelers' story, providing them with the money to finish the project.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 7, 2005