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Detlev Buck is fast establishing himself as one of Germany's most fresh, prolific and successful contemporary directors. He has made three features since graduating from the Berlin Film and TV Academy in 1990 and, most importantly, they have been received with varying degrees of popular acclaim. (What's more, in a country not unlike Australia, where distributors and audiences tend to shy away from home-grown product.)

The comedic tone of Little Rabbits is decid­edly light and 'old-fashioned', its methods highly reminiscent of Bill Forsyth's films. Koppe is a wet-behind-the-ears teenager from the provinces who joins the police force to see the world. Not even the most rigorous training can cure a day dreamer oblivious to the alleged merits of the daily grind, and he is posted to the kind of 'middle of nowhere' place he so wanted to leave. When his duty finally calls, he follows the procedures, only to learn that the law is anything but fair.

Little Rabbits is unashamedly populist with its affable depictions of social misfits and hicks from the sticks who remain wholly indifferent to the prejudice of outsiders. Pervaded with a cheeky subversiveness, the film, quite unsus­pectingly, turns its parody of feeble-minded authority figures into a gently biting satire about social conformity and officialdom. As Koppe learns, there's a world of difference between getting things done the right way and the wrong way, between being a rebel and an enforcer. And no matter what anyone says, being a cop is more than a job, it is a way of life.