User Reviews

In some ways, this is a (film) academic piece. It deals with a young man working on a high-rise construction site, and his foreman (or so I gather). And a frog (don't ask).

It's in color, and yet a silent movie (with quite very likable music, too). And it runs just over 6 minutes, where a reel of old would hold roughly ten.

Memories of Harold Lloyd's films, and the famous photo of construction workers lunching on a double-T bar high in the city air all come to mind.

All in all, this shorty is a delightful homage to classic icons. No more, no less. Very short, very funny (and thought-inducing).

If you take a look at the international title of "Hochbetrieb", you will see it is called "Nuts and Bolts". This is also another indication of how closely connected this film is to the very early silent movies. You don't need to be able to speak German as there is no dialog in here. We see two men working on a construction site high up in the air, an older worker and his apprentice. Basically they are almost falling down for the entire film and that's why it gets quickly uninteresting. One nice little reference about a very famous photo, but that's pretty much all there is to it. The dresses and acting may be the same as in these old movies, but the charm simply isn't there. By the way both actors in here are still working in German film and television these days and the writer and director Andreas Krein is not shooting his own films anymore, but was part of the visual effects team from Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar". Maybe that's a good thing as I found "Nuts and Bolts" fairly underwhelming. Not recommended.