The Tunnel is essentially a prison-break movie with a few crucial differences. Instead of trying to escape a controlled area, its protagonists are trying to break into one, and instead of a penitentiary, they're trying to get into the walled-off cell that was East Berlin during the early '60s. Released on television in its native Germany a few years ago, The Tunnel boasts the kind of plot that would seem ridiculously implausible if it weren't based on a true story.
The tale of resilience and persistence casts Heino Ferch as a championship East German swimmer who previously served hard time for political dissent. When the Berlin Wall comes up, he wastes little time sneaking past it into West Germany. Once there, Ferch, his engineer brother, and a group of like-minded souls hit upon a scheme as audacious as it is seemingly foolhardy: to tunnel under the Berlin wall, emerge on the East German side, then take their families and loved ones back to the West. Beyond the obvious logistical problems, the schemers face a host of other complications, including the ever-present threat of informers and a savvy East German Raskolnikov hot on their trail, not to mention the presence of an NBC camera crew out to document their Cold War heroics.
Though edited down considerably from the TV version, The Tunnel is still an epic endeavor that works on the broad, sprawling canvas of social and political history. For its dogged diggers, the Cold War is less a scary abstraction than a horrifying, concrete reality that cleaves their existences in two, leaving gaping holes in their lives that they'll go to any extreme to fill. Ferch forcefully embodies that determination, but he nevertheless makes for a bland protagonist, all brawn and steely resolve. Thankfully, the film surrounds him with a more colorful supporting cast, including a child of the aristocracy intent on bringing over his beloved mother, and a gorgeous tomboy eager to smuggle her boyfriend past the Iron Curtain.
There's a riveting scene in which Ferch must impersonate Krebitz's East German boyfriend for the benefit of one of Krebitz's doddering old relatives. It's initially played for laughs, but when the relative asks Ferch how he escaped East Germany, the tone shifts dramatically as Ferch improvises by discussing his own horrific suffering at the hands of the East German military state. During such wrenching moments, it becomes clear just how dire conditions have become, elevating the film beyond the level of just another well-constructed thriller with elements of melodrama.