Goes Down Very Quickly
Merten Kröger (Maximilian Simonischek), one of the designers of the Hindenburg, learns of a conspiracy to blow up the airship on its maiden transatlantic voyage. The man behind the plot to blow up the Hindenburg is American businessman Edward van Zandt (Stacy Keach) who knows if the Hindenburg is a success he will go out of business. The trouble is that his wife and daughter Jennifer van Zandt (Lauren Lee Smith) are on board and he was unable to get them off before the airship took to the air. They are not the only ones as aboard the Hindenburg are various people from Jews trying to flee Germany to Nazi agents.
When the Hindenburg exploded the theories started; was it a spark of static electricity, was it sabotage or maybe it was a bomb. Well in the 2011 German movie "Hindenburg" it is a bomb with an American businessman behind things because his business is in danger if the Hindenburg being a success. That in itself isn't the worst idea in the world, at least we have motive for planting a bomb rather than simple hatred but beyond that point "Hindenburg" goes down extremely quickly.
The first thing is that this was originally a two part mini series which watched as one hits the 180 minute mark and if that sounds long it is because in its full length "Hindenburg" is laborious, slow and tedious for long periods of time. And the reason why "Hindenburg" is so long, well we have various characters with various subplots from those who are reluctantly leaving Germany to a romantic storyline involving Merten and Jennifer who have a meet cute in a lake when Merten's glider comes crashing down at the start of the movie and she saves his life.
It all becomes so tedious that "Hindenburg" becomes a slog with more issues when it comes to the acting with a mix of poor dubbing for the German actors and the American actors doing little too establish character. As such if you see the names Stacy Keach and Greta Scacchi don't be swayed as their performances are not great because the characters are not great either, poorly written with some huge inconsistencies.
What this all boils down to is that this 2011 movie called "Hindenburg" is not good especially if you sit through the full version. There is a shorter, edited down version out there that I haven't seen and I seriously doubt I could watch it after this either.
