Zweiohrküken

Till Schweiger is unfortunately one of those German directors who seem to "engineer" their movies in order to cater to a maximum degree to a certain target audience. By that I mean that he takes some simple ingredients that he knows will please the audience and loosely connects them to form a film.

He was clearly trying to sell this flick to women, so he took cute children, romance and jealousy, a main character discovering his responsibility in life (an invariant in films by Schweiger), inhibited erotic scenes and some stupid, below-the-belt kind of jokes and glued them together to an incoherent, predictable and largely non-entertaining collage.

Sometimes, the results of Schweiger's industrial film-making approach can be decent, as can be seen with Barfuss. Here however, the plot is just mundane to the point of being non-existing, the jokes are embarrassing and contrary to the first film, even the children are portrayed in such an unrealistic way that they don't convey any of the desired cuteness anymore.

As other reviewers have pointed out before me, the production company probably only wanted to make a quick buck with this, following up on the success of Keinohrhasen. If you think that you like a film formed from the above-mentioned ingredients than you should probably watch Keinohrhasen instead - it's exactly the same, only with a slightly better plot.

I started with an open mind since I enjoyed Keinohrhasen. That movie was kind of funny. This one however is a total sellout, designed to make an extra buck on the back of the previous movie. The jokes were not even funny and fairly predictable. I just wonder why nobody noticed during the production process how bad this was going to be. How is it to present such a bad movie at a movie premiere to an audience - did THEY think this was good. If you are renting the DVD - get plenty of alcohol, a backup movie and watch it with some friends that are funny. Don't watch it with your children. It's not funny or even enjoyable in any other way. They only way I can imagine someone enjoying this is if you are curious about what watching a really bad movie feels like.

I had already been a fan of Til Schweiger before seeing this film. I read about it that it did not receive the recognition it deserved. I had seen Til Schweiger in quite a few other films and I was interested to see his ability to perform in a drama setting. We had seen a bit of this in the film Driven in 2001, and his performance was outstanding. He stole the show, with his ability to become his character. But I noticed that when he doesn't say anything, he is still able to convey what is going on in the scene with just his emotions. Not many actors/actresses have mastered this ability and this is part of the appeal of watching him on screen.

This movie had both funny, awkward, and dramatic moments, that it all dealt with extremely well. I would recommend this film even to people who do not like reading subtitles. But part of the beauty of watching a film in another language is leaving it in it's intended language, as many scenes can be lost in translation. If you pay close attention to body language and the emotions involve, it's easy to perceive what is lost in translation.

My rating of this film, I would gladly pay to see it more than once and I intend to buy it on DVD. To my surprise, it was not available on stream, and the previous film from 2007 is not available either. This is very discouraging, but if you buy it or rent it somewhere, you will not be disappointed.

This wasn't my first film to watch in German and read subtitles. It won't be the last. The German film industry needs more recognition and that's surprising to come from an American, born and raised. But it's true and German films are worth every penny. It kind of makes me want to learn the language and experience the beauty of their culture after watching this movie. I hope someone else enjoys this film as much as I did.

Thanks to Til Schweiger for writing, directing, and acting this great piece of modern day masterpiece. Please continue to make great things and do good. We love your work and you as a very talented individual.