Falco: The Rise and Fall of an 80s Pop Icon

To most American audiences — at least those old enough to remember his music — Falco was a two-hit wonder whose songs were so infectious it didn’t matter if they made sense (or were even sung in English). To the people in his home country of Vienna, however, he was a musical god…at least as long as his songs stayed on the charts and in the discos. Falco’s story comes across as the worst kind of rock and roll cliche, complete with the sex, drugs and egomania audiences seem to demand of their pop idols, but the film is saved from complete tedium by the absolutely hypnotic performance of Manuel Rubey as the man who made Rock Me Amadeus a brief , but memorable music sensation.