Willkommen bei den Hartmanns

I have to admit that I first had reservations regarding this movie. Since the refugee situation in Germany is omnipresent in the media and the public discussion very polarized, one could already even call it intoxicated, I couldn't imagine how a subject like this could be turned into a comedy.

But Simon did an excellent job: he hired a bunch of very well known German actors, most of them actually from Munich, and portrayed the wealthy German society as a whole with the Hartmann family and movie's characters impersonating all the different political opinions and individual personalities. Controversional dinner discussions, resentments in all directions, accidents of all kind are leading to the most hilarious situations…

Politically Simon achieved to place the movie leisurely at the opinional center of the Germany society – a center that unfortunetely gets more and more eroded by the centrifugal forces of a polarized dicussion.

Extremely recommended because it's an extremely good comedy!

After several waves of refugees from Syria, Germany founded some movies about the circumstances to show positive examples how life can turn. But in my opinion the issue is "too wanted", the movie teaches the audience. Not in a bad way. It's ok to watch it, why not. But it has a smell of artificiality. It was a well-intentioned. I don't know which audience I would recommend it. Maybe for foreigners who want to know some parts of Germany's problems of the refugee-wave in 2015. I think it does not center clear enough on the problems many of the refugees have and why they fled.

I stumbled on this by Netflix recommendations and was a little bored at this time, so I thought: Why not? Overall this film is a light comedy with a solid background. At first I thought this may be part of 'framing', getting the German people to accept the flood of migrants they have experienced over the last years. But there's more to it. I got intrigued after about ten minutes and watched it till the (almost expected) end. The filming and acting was good, it was good entertainment, but with a slightly belly grim on my side (as a German). As a comedy this works well, but I found the educational under streams to be better citizens annoying. We Germans don't need that. I gave a six, though.

Great movie! The characters are funny, like a comedy should be at its best. The best German actors, straight-to-the-point dialogues, beautiful pictures. Hei, a German comedy at this international cinema level, you do not find that often! I've put Hartmann's heart in my heart, with all their spleens and weaknesses, who still hold together when it matters. What else do you want? That the comedy uses a serious refugee fate as a background for the family development, is wonderful. This is the way life is, everyone lives as best he can, and, at best, tries to help others. Simon Verhoeven wrote the script BEFORE the great wave of refugees came to Germany. He has taken a current situation as a hanger for typical family entertainment. And this has turned into a wonderful film that has thrilled over 3 million viewers.

All over the (western) world, there is one big issue that all have in common. It's a tragedy and it's tough for most people to wrap their head around some of the facts. We don't know what people really go through. Now some will take advantage of the system. But it's wrong to paint them all the same way.

This movie takes certain clichés and makes fun of them. Most of the jokes are not laugh out loud funny though. It tries to be sophisticated about certain things and it does succeed most of the time. It's really a testament to script writing and to the fact that there is good writing in Germany, which leads to good movies. Some things are predictable of course, but it's still suspenseful until the end - and funny of course