Männer

The version we tried to watch was "Men", dubbed into English. We couldn't stay the course, as the speech was so stilted and unnatural. I suspect that the German language version is much better, but we may not be able to find one here in northern New Mexico.

The story is about an executive who finds that his wife is cheating on him with a bohemian artist who lives with two roommates, so he contrives to move in with this artist to find out why-and to slowly make him like himself. The artist kicks out his other male roommate, and the female roommate tries to hit up on the executive. This could have become an intense and exciting drama, but unfortunately it is mostly insipid and harmless, with a ridiculous ending, probably because the director couldn't think of anything better. Perhaps the idea was meant to explore male mentality, judging by the title, but the movie fails in that regard.

Some European movies seem to be better than American movies, this could be one of them. It was really funny, and it was also really European. Why? Because it´s crude, it´s cold, it´s hot, it´s strong.... And I love it!!! Maybe it´s the german humor.

Two men make friends with a woman. One is her husband, and the other one is her lover. The husband finds out that his wife is having an affair, and he develops a very useful trick. It is really funny to watch them start a friendship, and sharing experiences with each other. It is a great movie. Rent it if you see it in blockbuster, or look for it on the T.V. It will be worth it....

I loved the movie when watching it in the 80's and I enjoyed it just as much when watching it again recently. The main difference between now and then is that simple and almost forgotten things now striked my eyes like telephone cords, music tapes or minibikes.

The interaction between the two very different men, ambitious versus relaxed, is still good fun, while they are in love with the same woman. Especially the performance of Uwe Ochsenknecht as the relaxed part of the flat share is quite impressive. He manages to give his character Stefan a very good mix of easy going, sensitivity and sincerity. Only in the end Stefan gets very easily manipulated and tempted by money, what I found a bit disappointing.

Still, the movie has good conversations, stupid-clever male sayings about women and the acting is not overdone, not even in the shrillest situations. It is even believable that the two very different opponents little by little take a liking to each other, although it has to be said, that only one of them knows about their rivalry.

Overall, this makes a clear recommendation because it is good and intelligent entertainment.

A man's wife leaves him to take up with an artist, so the man responds by becoming the artist's roommate.

First of all, the plot here is brilliant. Maybe it is not original, maybe it's been done before. I don't know. But the concept is clever enough to get some great situations. And the humor, which is evident in the script, is somewhat amplified in the American release by the weird dubbing. This is far from the worst dubbing I have ever heard, but it does have them saying things I find hard to believe were in the original.

Unfortunately, at the time of this writing (January 2017), it seems that the best way to see the film is on a DVD that is very obviously a VHS transfer. The picture is bad. Really, really bad. In the age of 2K and 4K scans, hopefully someone comes along and gets a better release out there.