 A film in three minutes. Run, Lola, run. Okay, so your boyfriend has just called you an frantic blaze of desperation and needs 100,000 Deutschmarks in 20 minutes, otherwise he'll be dead. And go. Got any ideas? Well, you'd better, because from this moment on, the clock is ticking. And in 1998, that's exactly what happens in Tom Tyker's fast-paced experimental thriller, Run, Lola, Run. Set in Berlin, the story follows Lola, played by Franka Potenta, who must help her boyfriend Manny, played by Moritz Bleibtroy, raised 100,000 Deutschmarks in order to pay off a loan to a criminal gangster. In her frantic rush to find Manny and figure out a way to save his life, the pair eventually rob a supermarket before being chased down by the police. In her frantic rush to find Manny and figure out a way to save his life, Lola forces her father at gunpoint to help her rob the bank he works at before taking the money and trying to reach Manny in time. In her frantic rush to find Manny and figure out a way to save his life, Lola tries to win the 100,000 needed at a nearby casino, betting everything she has on her before the clock reaches midday. For those unfamiliar with the unique narrative format in Tyker's film, Run, Lola, Run or Lola Rent in German acts as a collection of three shorter stories, all of which encompass Lola's desperate quest to help Manny get the money he needs before the clock strikes 12. Each of the three alternate narratives have their own subtle differences and consequences for Lola, but all three are connected by repeating characters and motifs, an ambulance driver not paying attention to the road, a lover's argument between Lola's father and his mistress, or the cyclist attempting to sell Lola his bike. All of these supporting elements are interconnected and play on the idea of how a small difference in timing can have dramatic ripple effects for others elsewhere. But this experimental approach to constructing the story would perhaps have had far less impact if not for Tyker's stylish direction and cinematographer Frank Greiber's wholly original visual approach, combining various film formats with animation, flash photography and split-screen montages that give the film its high-octane kinetic energy. Energy 2 is personified in Frank's performance as the frenzied Lola, with her determination to save Manny becoming increasingly relentless as each of the stories play out. The many shots of her zooming past the streets of central Berlin are repeated time and time again, providing some nail-biting close calls as Lola fights against the clock. The end result, combined with music written by the director himself, gives the film a rollercoaster pace, making us as the viewer feel as exhausted from Lola's running as she is herself. Its ending or rather its three different endings vary in their levels of impact for the viewer, but the visual thrill ride each takes us on acts as the most lasting element of the film's running time. Pardon the pun. In the director's own words, a movie about life that doesn't confront us with drastic imagery doesn't represent life. In the case of Run Lola Run, truer words have never been spoken.