Based on the autobiographical book "All or Nothing" (2015) by rapper Xatar, "Rheingold" is the film of all films. What director Fatih Akin manages to achieve seems impossible, especially considering its nearly three-hour duration, which feels like a fresh bullet fired from an angry boy's pistol. If only his father hadn't left, nothing would have happened. Or perhaps if his mother hadn't been a revolutionary and hadn't given birth to him in a cave, where she sought refuge from the bombings during the war between Iran and Iraq.
"Rheingold" refers to the magical treasure of the Nibelungs, hidden in the Rhine, a lost location with the death of all who knew about it. And the reference is about a treasure that will be different for each person, like art. But something from the chaos of that legend, with characters starting wars and conspiracies out of emotional outbursts unrelated to the nation's state, is felt fully in the film. It's not for nothing that the film begins with war sequences, prisons, and torture, revolving around a rapper. The real past of his parents juxtaposes perfectly with everything else, while maintaining a direct influence.
From a war film, "Rheingold" turns into an action film, with gangsters and drug traffickers, only to become a heist movie. And you don't catch your breath because you don't have time. There are no dead moments, no breathing pauses, only Xatar's unstoppable chase, which, in the absence of bombs from the outside, generates explosion after explosion on his own.
The child turns into a rebellious teenager, then into a tough and reckless young man, and finally into an energetic and enterprising adult, without an ounce of patience. He is strong, smart, willing, and full of ideas. And the foundation given to him by his parents, music, will prove to be the saving treasure that the young man doesn't even realize he is searching for. The incredible life of the Kurdish rapper, portrayed in a turbulent and impetuous manner, just like his way of being, is unlike any other biopic you have seen before.