Seriously, you need much more than killing Nazi soldiers when you make a bloody and violent World War II exploitation flick. After all, Nazi soldiers in World War II movies usually exist for getting killed in one way or another just like those rotting zombies in horror movies, so you will definitely need some extra style and substance to spice up that familiar genre ingredient to our little entertainment.

Unfortunately, German Netflix movie “Blood & Gold”, which was released a few days ago, does not have that extra style and substance to distinguish itself besides its brutal and gory violence. While it is technically competent in many aspects, the movie is sadly two or three steps below what Quentin Tarantino gloriously achieved in “Inglourious Basterds” (2009), and we come to observe its pulpy moments without much care or interest, and we only end up being numbed by its relentless serving of remorseless violence.

At the beginning, we are introduced to a young Nazi soldier named Heinrich (Robert Maaser), who is running away from a bunch of other Nazi soldiers led by a hardcore SS officer. It is April 1945, and the war is being almost over with the imminent defeat of Nazi Germany on the horizon, but this SS officer, who looks quite creepy with his partially injured face, still believes that there is a chance for winning the war, so he is not so pleased about Heinrich’s desertion. When Heinrich is eventually captured outside some rural village, he subsequently gets himself hanged under a big tree, and the SS officer and his soldiers make sure that Heinrich will slowly suffer more pain and misery before his almost certain death.

Fortunately, Heinrich is saved at the last minute not long after his former comrades left him. His accidental savior is a woman named Sonja (Jördis Triebel), and she soon takes him to a remote spot where she and her mentally disabled younger brother have resided during last several years. Not so surprisingly, she hates Nazi soldiers for a personal reason, and she is also willing to let Heinrich stay a bit longer, though Heinrich confides to her later that he actually has an urgent personal matter which was the main reason of his desertion.

However, of course, both Sonja and Heinrich soon get themselves involved with those Nazi soldiers again, who subsequently come into the village for finding the gold which seems to be hidden somewhere inside the house originally belonging to a wealthy Jewish family. Although the house has been ruined since what tragically happened to that Jewish family shortly before the war began, the SS officer instructs his soldiers to search every corner of the remains of the house, and several village people become nervous about this for good reasons. After all, everyone in the village is quite willing to forget the past and then embrace the upcoming end of the war, but now here comes a fearful reminder of whatever they committed as encouraged by the toxic influence of the Nazi party during that dark period.

When Sonja’s place is subsequently ransacked by the Nazi soldiers and then she nearly gets raped by some of them, Heinrich decides to confront and fight against his opponents, and so does Sonja, who turns out to be much more hardened and strong-willed than we expected. After their violent moment with those Nazi soldiers, they quickly leave along with Sonja’s younger brother, but then they eventually end up killing more Nazi soldiers on their way, and the SS officer and a savage sergeant who has been his right-hand guy are certainly ready to eliminate both Heinrich and Sonja as soon as possible before finding the gold at last.

Around that point, the screenplay by Stefan Barth attempts to have a more vicious and violent fun with its broad archetype characters, but the result is rather meandering on the whole. I was amused a bit by several absurd moments including the one where Sonja’s younger brother gets what is probably his first taste of violence, but most of them just fizzle without leaving much impression. In case of the mystery surrounding the gold of the Jewish family, it is not particularly interesting because we can quickly discern what is really going on, and a little plot turn during its last act does not help much in my humble opinion.

I have no problem with the thin characterization of Barth’s screenplay because that usually comes with its genre territory, but most of the main characters in the film are not engaging enough to hold our attention. While Heinrich shows some personal sides along the story, he remains a rather bland figure compared to Sonja, who could be more interesting as a woman who had to take care of herself and her younger brother alone by herself for years. In case of those Nazi characters and several other sleazy figures in the film, we do not expect much depth from them from the beginning, but they seriously lack personality except that SS officer who comes to show a little twisted romantic fascination toward Sonja later in the story, and they eventually end up being no more than banal targets to be eliminated one by one.

“Blood & Gold” is directed by Peter Thorwarth, who previously directed another Netflix film “Blood Red Sky” (2021), a flawed genre product which could be more entertaining in its supposedly intriguing mix of two very different genre elements. Despite their many flaws, both of these two movies show that Thorwarth is a competent genre film director at least, and I can only hope that his next film will be more improved in terms of story and character.