American Soldier, The1970

Director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Actors

Karl Scheydt (Ricky)
Elga Sorbas (Rosa von Praunheim)
Jan George (Jan)
Hark Bohm (Doc)
Marius Aicher (Polizist)
Margarethe von Trotta (Zimmermaedchen)

A hitman’s idea of homecoming comes with a body count.
After returning to Munich from Vietnam, Ricky, a German-American veteran, is hired by corrupt policemen to carry out a series of killings. As he moves through the city’s shadowy underworld, the line between duty, desire, and violence begins to blur, and the job pulls him into a bleak world of betrayal and self-destruction.
Fassbinder turns the gangster story into a cold, stylized meditation on alienation, power, and moral emptiness.
“A subversive, self-reflexive gangster movie full of unexpected asides and stylistic flourishes, and features an audaciously bonkers final shot and memorable turns from many of the director’s rotating gallery of players.” – Criterion
“This film marks a decisive step towards ‘real’ Fassbinder: the absurdity of its world of second-hand experience invests every cliché with a meaning it never had before.” – Time Out
“Audacious and technically brilliant” – Roger Ebert