Oi! Warning

Janosch, just seventeen, runs away from home and leaves his girlfriend, his mother and her classy mansion behind. He heads on the moped for Dortmund, to the Koma he so admires: a skinhead and kick-boxer who works in a brewery. Koma’s pregnant girlfriend Sandra is not overjoyed about his arrival. She has had enough of the initiation rites of the skins, their physical drinking bouts and noisy anti-bourgeois bravado. But she doesn’t do anything. Soon Janosch has not just adopted the hairstyle and tattoos, but also has acquired a new girlfriend and the capacity to deal out mighty thumps. At Koma’s ‘summerhouse’, a deserted mill by a lock, a punk falls victim to him. When the mill is burnt down soon after, Koma threatens revenge, in the conviction that it was the punk’s friends. He expects absolute loyalty from Janosch. It all turns out differently when Janosch comes into in contact with Zottel, a fire-eating, pierced, gay new-age travelling punk. So Janosch falls in love with the chief suspect. The core of the film is the energy with which the twin Reding brothers have shaped their view of the fringes of society. Their début, filmed in crystal clear black & white, is characterised by a feverish mood, unpredictable nature and aggression. Visual power is coupled with control: Oi! Warning skilfully skirts the usual socially and ideologically burdened presentation of subcultures.