Dampfnudelblues

I was amazed by how good this movie was. I more or less walked into the cinema because I needed some distraction, and it seemed like the best thing on that evening. I haven't read the book and didn't know anything beforehand.

Director Ed Herzog hasn't many feature movies to his name and has mostly directed TV features, but it shows in a good way. The movie is unpretentious and understated, but in a good way, and every scene hits home. The actors bring out the most interesting angle of their characters. The movie is funny when it's supposed to be, there is suspense when there is supposed to be suspense, and unrequited romance when ... you get the point. The affluent pastoral boredom of Nether Bavaria and the Munich suburbs, with its immaculately kept but sanitized village squares, is well observed and accurately portrayed. The story is true-to-life and adequately gritty, but there is also a modicum of screen magic and entertainment -- of course, you won't find any cops complementing their uniforms with blue jeans and a casual T-shirt even in the farthest necks of the wood in Bavaria, but being the deadbeat cop of a boondock village never felt so cool before.

Not everyone has the same taste in comedy and this is not laugh out loud and infantile (well mostly it isn't) humor like the one you'll get with a regular Adam Sandler comedy. This is weird and quirky and feels awkward. And therefor it is (or might feel if you are into this) funny. The main actor is really relishing in the understatement and holding back of emotions, that his role requires.

Of course he is on his journey as are some other people in there. Just because it is a comedy doesn't mean it's light. No it does have quite a few dark sides to it. The story thread and the resolution work out nicely and the relationship between characters is easy to follow too. While it takes a while to get to the point it is worth while/watching

I like these bavarian movies, which mostly always show a bizarre crime scene on these little fictional countryside villages. Franz Eberhofer, a little villages cop has to cope with the case, the circumstances and his father, who has a marihuana plantation, which isn't allowed in Germany, of course. His mother does the most typical meals of bavaria and any movie of this series has another meal's title, mixed with common music anglicisms. The humor is made of bavarian stereotypes. It's most funny when the people interact, specially Eberhofers friends and his chief, but also his family. It also becomes sometimes more serious, when the police work is in the focus. In Germany, the movies of this series are very succesful, because of it's dry and sometimes black humor. Clear recommendation.