Karl Markovics Movies
Austrian actor Karl Markovics began signing for onscreen work in the early '90s -- typically in projects in his native country -- and became immediately known for performances and characterizations of marked intensity in such continental productions as Helmut Dietl's Late Show (1999, a supporting turn) and Houchang Allahyari's Geboren in Absurdistan (2001). Markovics received lead billing in the latter -- a black comedy about a member of the Australian government who sternly opposes immigration and becomes implicated in a horrid mix-up involving the swap of his newborn baby with a Turkish infant at the local hospital. The actor achieved some international crossover success that same year, with a small role in Stefan Ruzowitzky's farce All the Queen's Men (2001), but really only came to the forefront of public attention with his lead in the arthouse hit The Counterfeiters (2007). In the latter -- a bleak WWII-era drama -- Markovics played an artist willingly tapped by the Nazis to use his penmanship for dark and nefarious means. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
Writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky explores the moral corrosion of Nazi complicity with this tightly wound adaptation of Adolf Burger's fact-based book The Devil's Workshop. Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) may be a talented artist at heart, but his desire for wealth has driven him to use his creativity for more nefarious means. Arrested by the police inspector Herzog (Devid Striesow) at the onset of World War II, Sorowitsch is sent to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp. It's not long before Salomon's thinly veiled opportunism earns him a relatively comfortable position as the camp's resident sketch artist, and five years later he is mysteriously swept away to Sachsenhausen. Upon arriving at the camp, Sorowitsch discovers that Herzog, now a commandant, is attempting to destabilize the economies of the Allies while simultaneously funding the Nazi war machine by assembling a special team of counterfeit artists to create millions in fraudulent pounds and dollars. As the operation gets under way, Sorowitsch finds the efforts of the team continually undermined by unyieldingly idealistic collotype specialist Adolf Burger (August Diehl). In the months that follow, the team wrestles with their consciences as Axis forces are gradually overwhelmed by Allied might. The Counterfeiters won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karl Markovics, August Diehl, (more)
A few good men are sent on a secret mission as a few good women in this comic tale of wartime espionage, loosely based upon a true story. Steven O'Rourke (Matt LeBlanc) is an American intelligence agent who, during World War II, has been assigned to obtain an Enigma machine, a special encoding-and-decoding device that Axis forces have developed to transmit their most sensitive secret information. A working Enigma machine would be invaluable to the Allied cause; O'Rourke is able to obtain a machine, but Col. Aiken (Edward Fox), a British officer whose stiff upper lip sometimes overwhelms his common sense, mistakes O'Rourke for a plunderer and destroys the previous gadget, which is hidden in a typewriter. An altercation with Aiken lands O'Rourke in military prison, but he's released in time to carry out a new plan to obtain an Enigma for Allied use. A small factory has been set up in rural Germany to build the machines, which is entirely staffed by women, so O'Rourke, communications expert Johnno (David Birkin), and veteran intelligence man Archie (James Cosmo) are to infiltrate the plant disguised as women, with Tony (Eddie Izzard), an agent who moonlights as a drag performer, giving the men a crash course in looking and acting like women. All the Queen's Men also features Nicolette Krebitz as Romy, a double agent working at the Enigma plant, and Udo Kier as Lansdorf, a Nazi general. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matt LeBlanc, Eddie Izzard, (more)
- 2001
Politically enforced racial prejudice is parodied in this dark comedy from Austria. Stefan (Karl Markovics) is a bureaucrat with the Austrian government who supervises immigration issues; Stefan's politics lean rather strongly to the right and he has little use for people from abroad. Stefan and his wife Marion (Julia Stemberger) are expecting a baby, and when Marion goes into labor, she arrives at the hospital's maternity ward at the same time as Emine (Meltem Cumbul) and her husband Emre (Ahmet Ugurlu), a couple of Turkish birth who are also about to have a child. Marion and Emine end up sharing a room, leading to an argument between Stefan and Emre. Emre's quarrel with Stefan turns out to be an omen of things to come; though he and his wife have been living in Austria for close to ten years, a mix-up with the immigration department forces the couple and their young child to return to Turkey. However, a nurse at the hospital informs Marion of a terrible mistake -- she was accidentally given Emine's baby, and vice versa, and so Stefan and Marion travel to Turkey, hoping to track down the recently deported couple and exchange their children. Geboren in Absurdistan was directed by Allahyari Houchang, who began his career in Iran before relocating to Vienna in the wake of the Islamic revolution. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karl Markovics, Julia Stemberger, (more)
- 1999
Two top German television personalities star in this comedy in which they parody the entertainment industry, as well as their own on-air personalities. In Cologne, Germany, the Tele-C network is in deep trouble -- they're stuck in the ratings cellar, the star of their most popular show has just quit, and the moneymen are not at all happy. Program director Conrad Scheffer (Harald Schmidt) thinks he sees a light at the end of the tunnel when he meets the partner of his assistant, Carla Sperling (Jasmin Tabatabai). Hannes Engel (Thomas Gottschalk) is a handsome and personable disc jockey working at a small radio station in the country, and Conrad is convinced he'd be perfect for television. All Conrad has to do is (a) convince Hannes to take the job, (b) get Carla over her belief that Hannes would be making a horrible mistake by going into television, and (c) get the network's current talk show host out of the way. Schmidt and Gottschalk have been called the Jay Leno and David Letterman of German TV, and their presence together made this comedy something of an event in its home country. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Gottschalk, Harald Schmidt, (more)
