Watch Out Little Boy Riding Hood.
By Fred Leland

November 23, 2001

The Trio is a neat film that happens to be in German (English subtitles,) packs a lot into the first 40 minutes, but has some terrible marketing behind it. To read the packaging you think you're about to watch something like La Cage Aux Folles, that's The Birdcage to us Americans, and that you'll be rolling on the floor in laughter. The truth is that you'll be smiling in admiration of the film's cleverness.

The Trio is a unique movie that doesn't fit comfortably into one category, because it moves easily from Drama to Comedy to Suspense. It occurred to me about 15 minutes into the film, that I was watching a fantastically executed metaphor: these weren't just pickpockets, but a pack of predators or human wolves. They exist in their own sense of time and rules, are guided by an alpha male, and separate the weak from the rest of the herd before the attack.

The pack is led by Zobel (Gotz George) a complicated man with a sense of darkness and magic about him, not unlike Fagin (Ron Moody) in the film Oliver! Zobel and his longtime companion Karl (Christian Redl,) are having to deal with their uncertain future as they bring out the uglier side of each other. Zobel picks on Karl for becoming old and less sharp, while Karl becomes more miserable and ready to leave in anyway possible. Lizzie (Jeanette Hain,) is Zobel's daughter and well on her way to surpassing the teaching of her dear old dad. Jeanette Hain looks like a cross between Uma Thurman and Mia Farrow, so there's a sense of grace about her, which comes in handy because Lizzie is often the pack member to swoop in and snatch a person's wallet while they're distracted by Zobel. And it's Lizzie who manages to quiet the fights between Zobel and Karl.

A young mechanic named Rudolf (Felix Eitner,) crosses paths with the pack when he steals Karl's purse one night at the local carnival. They rough him up a bit, but later pull Rudolf in when Karl is critically injured during a robbery gone wrong. Zobel sets down the rule that there is to be no exchange of bodily fluids between team members. The only problem: Zobel and Lizzie want Rudolf, in fact Lizzie literally attacks Rudolf before having her way with him. Then when Karl dies, Rudolf seduces Zobel. Up to this point Rudolf has been taking on personality traits from Zobel and Lizzie along with their skills. But then Rudolf finds himself playing both sides against the middle. The Trio is a nervous film to begin with, but becomes more so as Rudolf gets caught. You could say that Lizzie has all the cards at this point, but in fact she's got two sets of testicles in her hands and she isn't afraid to squeeze, because she's now the alpha.

Things do work out of course, as Rudolf and Lizzie realize that they need Zobel. But at this point Lizzie has become the pack leader with Rudolf riding her coat tails and Zobel eager be with her again. Their first job as a pack again, involves robbing passengers on a train, during which the couple taunts Zobel with their boldness. These characters are pathetic in many ways, poetic, somewhat honorable, but most importantly they are well written. The idea of a pack of human predators, living just above a purely primal level, wouldn't work if the characters weren't so well defined.

I gladly press on The Trio.

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