Kleine Haie

"Kleine Haie" is hands down one of the best movies to come out of Germany during the nineties. At the time it quickly earned a cult following. The story is simple, as it follows a group of three very different characters attending auditions at a Munich acting school. Aptly, the title derives from a book of speech practices, "Der Kleine Hey". KH was the sophomore feature film of director Sönke Wortmann and introduced several young actors that would become well known in Germany during the years to come, most notably Jürgen Vogel. Armin Rohde appears in a notorious supporting role as muscle car driving "Bierchen".

This was one early work of young German director Sönke Wortmann. Many German actors appearing in this movie started their careers based on this movie, e.g. Jochen Vogel as the best known among them. This script is fantastic, fast furious, intelligent, lots of humor lots of human feelings and good portion of political incorrectness. Beautiful pictures from German autobahn to Munichs discos. Many famous lines in this movie actually became household expressions. At least any visitor of the German beer capital Munich during Oktoberfest Zeit, will find many parallel situations experienced by the films protagonists. "Only for Stammgäste" will be one of the answers Americans will have heard trying to enter one of the better meeting points, discos or private lounges in Munich. This is one of the rare films you wanna watch multiple times. Sadly, Sönke never came up with a hit like this. If you liked Quentins Pulp Fiction you gonna love this movie.

This is a road film about three young men coming to grips with their thespianism and living proof that comedy is not merely a genre inflicted unilaterally by Hollywood on the rest of the world. Upping the ante after "Allein unter Frauen," this is the film that put post-reunification German comedy firmly on the map. For those of you open-container-deprived North Americans, this film is worth watching just for the scenes featuring the camaro-pilot "Bierchen" and for the use of the fine technical pleonasm "Fahrbier."