Faster than anything put on screen this year, Tom Tykwer's brilliantly kinetic, super-charged "Run Lola Run" is the kind of film critics pine for and general audiences wow over. Yes folks - this is that rare one that delivers on both counts. Taking a simple premise and using every trick invented, Tykwer has made a breathless, breath-taking confection that stands up well under intense scrutiny.

Flame-haired Lola (Franka Potente) receives a frantic phone call from her boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu). A small-time courier for a big-time gangster, Manni's inadvertently left a bag containing 100,000 Deutsche Marks on the subway system, a result of panicking when cops enter the train car. Now, with an impending meeting with the hood, Manni - at a total loss - calls Lola, who has 20 minutes to come up with the money and keep him alive. So Lola runs through the streets of Berlin, hoping to scavenge the money from her banker father, or to otherwise obtain it at all costs.

The film's conceit is to have the 20 minutes play out in real time in three consecutive segments - each time her 20 minutes are up, the film offers a moving, good reason for Lola to return to start point and begin her journey once again, and each time, different results ensue.

Tykwer's film is a tautly directed combination of action, drama and romance. By setting up an urgent premise that demands attention, he takes his audience along for a fantastic voyage. Lola becomes an animated cartoon, blurs into a video clip during the course of her journey, and Tykwer expertly mixes all these disparate media into a cohesive whole. As the composer of much of the hypnotic, trance-like score that accompanies Lola's fast-paced sojourn of the city, he also manages to control the overall mood and tone of the film by mildly adjusting the music in surprising ways. Most impressively, his contrivance of having the same 20 minute period replay itself three times is given a poignant reason and easily displaces any lingering questions about the necessity for Lola to begin all over again.

In a film like this, the titular character must be protagonist, narrator and guide, and in Franka Potente, Tykwer has found an astonishing leading lady who brings spunk and vulnerability to Lola. Although it seems all she does is run throughout the film, the beauty of Potente's performance lies in the subtle changes she makes to her portrayal of Lola in each of the three segments, effectively setting up the mood for the ensuing drama. Working without the benefit of expository dialogue and relying largely on physical exertion to get her point across, Potente is a rivetting screen presence that grips the viewer and compels rapt attention. Playing opposite her in a handful of scenes, Moritz Bleibtreu shares an emotionally charged chemistry with her and lends depth and credibility to the great lengths Lola goes through in order to save her lover's life. Also of note is Herbert Knaup's work as Lola's distant father.

I don't believe I will ever forget a film like "Run Lola Run". Of course, Tykwer's point in this filmic exercise is to examine the meaning of the moment and the alterations individual lives face given a set of external consequences beyond the individual's control. Even as Lola keeps running into the same people again and again in each of the three times she repeats her journey, their lives are changed in ways not apparent to the naked eye - how one's life is changed by forces outside one's deliberate actions is the question; but why burden this fresh, exciting film with such a heavy-handed analysis? Just sit back and enjoy it for its peerless vision, galvanizing direction and flawless lead performances. It would be hard to find a more entertaining, thoughtful and exhilarating film this year.