Professional MMA fighter Octavio Bergmann (Emilio Sakraya) is preparing for one of the biggest fights of his career. His opponent is late, and that’s a problem: it’s actually the night of his daughter’s birthday party and he has promised to attend. However, as he enters the ring, he learns that his ex-wife is filing for sole custody unless he can make it to the party within the hour. Octavio drops everything and runs towards them – angry elements of the criminal underworld who are betting big on his fight and will now chase him around Berlin to try to get him back to the ring.
That is the premise of Netflix’s affordable German action thriller Sixty minutes, which quietly came out in January and is one of the stronger action films of the year so far. It is led by a stellar performance from Sakraya, a former national karate champion, along with strong fight choreography and propulsive storytelling, motivated by a time-related plot gimmick.
Octavio has 60 minutes to get from point A to point B, with stops along the way to pick up a present and a cake. The film has that action take place in real time, a familiar gimmick from films like Lola run And Cleo from 5 to 7, and it really adds to the immersion. But it also gives director and co-writer Oliver Kienle opportunities that films didn’t have, as he experiments with modern technology as narrative tools.
First off, Octavio wears an earpiece connected to his phone throughout the film, and Kienle and co-writer Philip Koch cleverly use phone calls to break up the monotony of what could otherwise be a 60-minute car chase . Motorized scooters also have a role to play, both as a weapon and as a means of getting around the city faster. All the while, the literally ticking clock of Octavio’s watch and the map of his journey occasionally appear on the screen, reminding us (and him) how far he has to go, and how little time he has to get there .
Photo: Reiner Bajo/Netflix
Sixty minutesThe fight scenes are great and rely on the impressive skills of Sakraya and veteran stunt performers Marie Mouroum and Aristo Luis, both of whom play major roles in the film. The choreography is violent but measured, reflecting the MMA training of many of the characters. Those sequences pay as much attention to how blows are dodged as to how blows are connected, making the fights feel realistic. Occasionally overactive camera movement or editing undermines the choreography, but for the most part these scenes feel tense and dangerous.
While she’s still occasionally held back by a common problem with these types of custody thrillers – the cold, unfeeling ex-wife who’s just out to ruin the main character’s life – Sixty minutes at least has the courage to make it clear that Octavio has been an absent father and missing his daughter’s party would be the last straw (the threat from his ex-wife is not just a random act of cruelty). And the choice to have him run away from a major career opportunity to his daughter is a strong one, resulting in an experience where the main character is constantly trying to run away from the movie he’s in. Sixty minutes gives Sakraya a lot of space to express his character’s pain and frustration over his own decisions. It’s the kind of genre Netflix should curate more of, and it’s a strong start to 2024 for the streamer.