APOLOGIES for being vague, but if memory serves there was a German film where a bunch of travelling musicians got a kick from entering houses while the owners were out and promptly making music out of whatever appliances were lying around.

Soon afterwards an advert played on exactly the same riff.

There must be something in the German water because here come idealistic flatmates Jan (Daniel Bruhl) and Peter (Stipe Erceg), who like to break into mansions and re-arrange the furniture. This is not for the love of music but, as their balaclavas, black gloves and dark clothes would indicate, darker political forces are at play.

They are Leftist activists, whose first act in Hans Weingartner's crisply original crime drama is to demonstrate their version of redistributing wealth.

They do this by putting some wealthy German family's stereo in the fridge and toy soldiers down the loo, and leaving the biblical-toned message Your Days Of Plenty Are Numbered. So too, however, are the flatmates' joyous days of bashing capitalism.

When Peter pops off to Barcelona, Jan gets to know his girlfriend, waitress Jule (Julia Jentsch) far better, falling for her and letting her in on the secret behind The Edukators' methods. Here the darkness seeps in, as they decide to target an avaricious Mercedes driver still owed 94,500 Euros by Jule after she crashed, uninsured, into his car.

Revenge takes the form of the usual break-in but this time followed by a bungled kidnapping in an isolated mountain cabin. The situation becomes more complex, and so do the characters and the movie in a starkly humorous study of adrenaline-fuelled rebellion and youthful hopes countered by global capitalism and diabolical realities.

Updated: 16:05 Thursday, May 05, 2005