The Tunnel, which was broadcast on German television in 2001 and screened at Los Angeles’ Made in Germany festival later that year, is finally seeing a long-overdue—albeit limited—run on U.S. screens this year, leading up to its DVD release on October 4. Set in 1961, during the early stages of the Berlin Wall’s construction, The Tunnel takes a miraculous true story of courage and conviction, and improbably, finds a cinematic middle ground between the thrill-a-minute popcorn suspense of The Fugitive and Schindler’s List’s harrowing, heart-wrenching account of lamentable recent history.

Clearly, something has gone wrong when a romantic comedy is neither romantic nor especially funny. The Baxter, like some of those lesser SNL skits turned feature-length films, is another example of what happens when a movie relies more on a single concept to string us along rather than fleshing out a plot or characters: We figure out the ending long before the third act and, in the meantime, just hope that something gratifying transpires in the remaining minutes—which it doesn’t.