Hailed as “the best German pic to appear on the scene in the new season” by Variety's Ron Holloway last February, The Heartbreakers evokes a mid-sixties milieu of garage bands and small rock clubs in a quirky, humorous story of six young musicians' attempt to make it big. First making each others' acquaintance at a police interrogation following a Rolling Stones concert fracas, five boys in a remote industrial town decide to form their own group, setting their sights on nothing short of total fame, à la the Stones, the Kinks and the Animals. One boy has an accordion, which he is willing to swap for a drum; another has a home-made amplifier, two guitars and some wild fantasies; a third plays organ Mass on Sundays and is the proud owner of a shocking collection of pills; another gains entrée into the group as the son of a music-shop owner; and the fifth is a peripatetic, 14-year-old chain-smoker destined to be the group's manager. When a female vocalist, Lisa, is brought into the act, the boys' lives become complicated by sexual competition and Lisa's serious problems on the homefront. Director Peter F. Bringmann (Theo Against the Rest of the World) augments a rock'n'roll soundtrack with a tightly-written script filled with sight word gags. Writing for the 1983 London Film Festival, the British Film Institute's John Gillett notes, “Bringmann brings out the players' individual qualities with insight and economy.... (He) knows the secret of sustaining tone and feeling and communicating his enjoyment to his audience.”