Teenage Wolfpack

Youth runs wild in the blitzed, economically punished streets of post-World War II Germany. Eighteen year old John longs to shrug off the corrupt middle class values of his destitute parents. The flashy life of his misfit older brother, Fred, draws John into a shadowy world of delinquency and heated sexual rivalry. Fred rules a gang of modern Robin Hoods, urged on by his sexy 16 year old girlfriend Sissy's unrelenting greed. Syncopated to the swing of jazz just before it would erupt into rock 'n roll, a deadly triangle forms. Brother is turned against brother with Sissy as the venomous prize.

Teenage Wolfpack (aka Die Halbstarken) is a thoughtful juvenile delinquency movie styled after Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without A Cause (1955), Laszlo Benedek's The Wild One (1953) and Luis Bunuel's Los Olvidados (1950). This intense chronicle of lost youth is infused with a steamy dose of sexual forthrightness and laced with provocative social commentary. Remarkable for its non-hysteric observations of budding adult desires, Teenage Wolfpack is a finely crafted thriller that hurtles to an indelible climax.

• drama