Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Rising High’ on Netflix, a Movie About High-End Hoaxsters That’s Basically ‘Wolf of Small Street’

New Netflix movie Rising High boasts a different title in its native German: Betonrausch. It doesn’t translate cleanly, defying expectation that it might be one of those very specific German words for, I dunno, “real estate scammers who blew it on blow” or “wolf of wall street” (cough) or something. It actually means “concrete noise”; interpret that as you will. More to the point, does this drama/comedy offer us a different riff on a familiar saga of shysters and strippers and the little people they run over?

RISING HIGH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A crazy gangsta party: Champagne, strippers, drugs, loud music and, the next morning, guests passed out on the lawn, a dazed butler, the SWAT team kicking down the back door. Things went well for Viktor (David Kross), and then they didn’t, which we hope is what usually happens with serial conmen. He sits in a prison conference room, spilling his guts to a journalist (Anne Schafer) about how he got nailed for tax evasion, credit and securities fraud, money laundering and corruption. What? No embezzlement? Well, Viktor is still young. There’s still time to add to his resume.

Viktor, you see, learned to hate paying taxes when his painter-of-houses father (Robert Schupp) fell behind and fell apart, and his mom flew the coop for a richer man. He leaves home for Berlin, where he’s denied a rental application because he has no job, works a day on a construction site for a few bucks and spends the night on a park bench. That must have been a never-again moment, because the next day, he fakes an employment contract and ID — his eyeroller of a fake name? Dirk Diggler — and scores a penthouse, which he sublets to cash-paid migrant construction workers, turning a tidy profit. Of course, they turn the place into a fight club. But he’s gotten a taste for the ripoff racket.

He finds a like mind in Gerry (Frederick Lau), and together, they concoct a real estate sham involving auction fraud, mortgage fraud and a handful of ripe suckers. Gerry’s old school pal Nicole (Janina Uhse) helps out with the mortgage fraud, and before you know it, kapow, they net millions. But that’s not enough — you gotta build on it, capitalize on the momentum. Lots of fellow barricudas join them in the hot tub as they build a house of cards on a foundation made of hot air and clouds. Viktor and Nicole fall in love. Cocaine; hookers; mansions; mommy and daddy issues; trouble; trouble; trouble.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: At half the run time and about 32 percent of the entertainment value, Rising High is more Wolf of Small Street than Wolf of Wall Street.

Performance Worth Watching: Kross is a sturdy lead, and does his best with a thin screenplay offering his character a shallow sort-of-redemptive arc.

Memorable Dialogue: How’d they get the capital for one particular shady maneuver, the journalist asks? “We borrowed it from drug dealers at 15 percent a week. An overdraft is nothing in comparison,” Viktor quips.

Sex and Skin: Strippers here, strippers there, strippers ogled by the camera everywhere.

Our Take: Rising High is slick and flimsy, a cynical story about a guy who kind of wants to crash the system, but not so much that it falls on top of him. Is Viktor a corrupt capitalist in it only for himself, or is he a burn-it-all-to-ash Tyler Durden type? He doesn’t commit; either would be more interesting than the half-realized character who’s supposed to anchor the film. Do we root for him as an underdog, or loathe him for being a deeply corrupt flimflam man? I don’t know; he’s not that complex or interesting.

The core problem is, I’m not sure writer/director Cuneyt Kaya has anything to say. Does the financial system need more regulation to tighten loopholes? Does the pursuit of wealth ultimately corrupt the pursuer? Do rich people cultivate a cult of personality? Yes, yes, yes — but we knew that before watching this movie, and it diddles and farts with ideas without really exploring any, rendering its drama ineffective and its comedy tepid.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Rising High is watchable, but it needs to be much more than that.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Riding High on Netflix