Biopics about musical artists seem to be pumped out without much consideration of whether or not the artist in question has a story that’s really worth telling. But Giwar “Xatar” Hajabi, a Kurdish rapper famous in Germany, has a genuinely extraordinary life story, having gone from an Iranian refugee who spent time as a child in a Bagdad prison to a gangster to a highly successful artist and businessman. It’s the type of rags-to-riches ascent that you couldn’t script better — which makes it a shame that the thoroughly mediocre “ Rhinegold ” can’t shape Habaji’s life into anything particularly engaging.
“Rhinegold” comes from director Fatih Akin , a Golden Bear winner for his 2004 breakout film “Head-On,” whose other achievements include a Best Screenplay prize for 2007’s “The Edge of Heaven” and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film for 2017’s “In the Fade.” Despite Akin’s obvious pedigree — and the film’s box office success in Germany — “Rhinegold” is arriving in U.S.
theaters this July with little fanfare, after it first premiered at the 2022 Filmfest Hamburg festival and saw a theatrical release in its home country that same year. Part of its muted reception and the protracted wait might come from the genuine disaster that was Akin’s last feature, the serial killer horror film “The Golden Glove,” which was greeted with disgust by critics at the Venice Film Festival. But watching “Rhinegold” itself reveals the main.