Suck Me Shakespeer (2013)

Very disappointing...

Admirable film.

The first must-see film of the year.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

As far as I know, FJG was the most successful German movie of the last few years - I can really not understand why this movie is so popular.The plot, or more like the idea behind the plot, was adopted nearly 100% from the 1999 American movie 'Blue streak'; and I'm saying this though I have seen BS only once, and approximately 7 years ago. It even seems like they haven't tried to modify it at all. The only adjustment was made regarding the context of the protagonist's work place (= the place where his 'treasure' was hidden) - but probably only for the purpose of connecting this idea to the stale and often (like in this case) uninspired genre of high school movies. Watching the beginning (first ~15 min) of both movies and comparing them would be quite funny.'Funny' is the right keyword: Many people recommended this movie to me because it was "so funny, witty, etc". It isn't. At all. Very shallow humour combined with some shoddy pseudo ghetto slang - That's it. Besides there are so many irritating characters (especially among the students).In addition to that, the message of the movie (if there is one; I tried my best to find it) is highly questionable in my opinion: Again this "everyone can reach everything and everyone is something special if you give them attention, bla bla"-bulls.hit. NO. Simply no. Not all students are equally intelligent, but one is of course not allowed to voice this today. (This is btw a great example of how the German education system works nowadays)It may also be that I missinterpreted the message, because it may as well be a simple plot mistake that the extremely dumb and annoying girl (hearing her slang and voice was a torment) is considered 'highly gifted' at the end of the movie. WTF? Really?Then there is the f.ucking usual love story according to the f.ucking usual scheme and thus extremely f.ucking predictable.This whole story is so far-fetched, the movie lacks any level and the acting is (apart from Karoline Herfurth and to a lesser extent Elyas M'Barek) between run-off-the-mill and annoying.To sum it up, I have really no f.ucking clue, why anyone would think this movie is at least average or even above. I think I have to re-consider my friendship to the people that recommended watching it to me. (just joking, but seriously...) I'd really have to think back to when I waited for the end of a movie this yearningly the last time.P.S.: Farid Bang appeared in this movie - That says it all. (For the other Germans who - probably unintentionally - know him)

If you've seen almost any German film in the past five years during a film festival that wasn't genre specific, you may have asked yourself: 'Geez, are Germans really THAT boring?' Well, be my guest if you did. And if you've seen a domestic German film in cinemas, you may have wondered: 'Geez, why are German actors so unfunny and stiff?' The answer to question No. 1 is: The German film industry runs on public funding and collaborations with public broadcasting stations, and the decisions there are made by politically affiliated men (and very few women) in their 60s. The answer to question No. 2 is: Acting schools are also usually public, teach drama courses geared for the stage, have a curriculum reduced to 18th century dramas and the occasional existentialist play which was hip in the 60s. Hence the gender stereotypes, old-fashioned themes and language, and - frequently - lack of coherence. Until 'Fack ju Göthe', that is (and apart from a few films by Faith Akın).For this topic-wise not really interesting school comedy, following pretty much a well-trodden formula, not only became the commercially most successful German film of the decade - it's actually funny. The leads are actually hot. The acting's actually geared to the camera and not an imaginary stage. No matter how rampant the stereotypes may be, they do work with the story. No matter how silly the youth slang comes along at times, it is real urban speech. No matter how predictable the underlying social message may be - migrants, believe in yourselves, then you won't end up in jail -, it's not heavy-handed and doesn't kill the jokes.That's because the writers, producers and the director are migrants themselves, and made this movie for an actual audience and not a public funding board. So not only is the enormous success of 'Fack ju Göthe' well deserved - it feels like a warm shower in an otherwise dreary, pseudo-intellectual German cultural atmosphere. If you want to watch a contemporary German film to see how people there tick, there isn't any alternative right now. Just don't expect anything super original or clever, just pretty solid entertainment - if the subtitles get the jokes right, or - better yet - you understand a teensy bit of German.

I never leave a movie before it finishes, but if I did, I may have done it here and I'd have missed a rise in quality. Thankfully the writer's intentions of relying completely on vulgar humor and stupid pranks to carry the movie quickly changed for the better. "Fack ju Göhte" is by the most commercially successful German movie of the year. So that means, we'll probably get a sequel no later than 2016, even if Elyas M'Barek, who reunited with director Bora Dagtekin from their movie and TV series Türkisch für Anfänger, just stated he's kinda sick of making films. The only real question open to be answered is if it can beat "Django Unchained" as the most-seen movie in German cinemas 2013. The question I have, however, is: Why? Why? Why? "Fack Ju Göhte" is by no means a terrible film (although you could probably say that for the first 30-45 minutes which was one of the worst I've seen all year and I've seen many), but it's not even close to the best German films from 2013. I wonder if a controversial title these days is enough to get people in millions into theaters. It's not even that the movie stays equally controversial from start to finish. Neither the parts of the lead character's emotional growing up, nor the funny parts, nor the romance parts were something that I would even consider even remotely great.I saw another user compare it to the German classic "Die Lümmel von der ersten bank", but I personally rather thought of "Keinohrhasen". Not only does Alwara Höfels, who did nothing for me here except drooling and letting everybody in the audience know what a stud M'Barek's character is, play a slightly crasser version of her character in that movie, but the story is essentially the same. Ruthless guy with no manners meets nerdy kindergärtner/teacher (ugly duckling who slowly turns into beautiful swan), grows closer with her always in danger of falling back into old schemes. I certainly preferred "Keinohrhasen" though. The lead performances, writing and attention to detail felt simply more credible to me. Maybe I'd consider the supporting players from "Fack ju Göhte" almost equal to Kavanian, Rohde, Schweighöfer and Vogel as Jella Haase and Katja Riemann did a fine job with what they were given. Haase's performance and also the "Romeo&Juliet" play made the development of the problem class the most interesting part of the film for me, more than the romance or Zeki's character development. With that scene where he fired early on out of the window, I immediately had to think of Fiennes' balcony scene from "Schindler's List". Not sure if that was intended though.Anyway, all in all it's an okay movie and even if I'm baffled by its audience numbers, it can make for a good watch if you don't expect something substantial, but just pointless fun.

Handsome rascal Zeki Müller has just been released after serving 13 months on the inside, but now everything seems to be going his way: All he has to do is dig up his loot so that he and his stripper friend can elope on an endless holiday of snorting coke and getting breast implants (her, not him). Unfortunately, the squalid containers of Goethe Comprehensive School now stands where he once buried his stash. Yadda yadda, and the old reprobate ends up as a sub teacher in the dysfunctional school with square-but-cute (her nerd glasses barely conceal that she's a smouldering sexual vulcano) colleague Lisi Schnabelstedt, trying to come to grips with his dysfunctional pupils. In the end, bad boy gets girl, discovers his heart of gold, and becomes teacher with an edge. Never mind the plot, though, because it's just a vessel for a lot of zany teacher-student-scenes and the übercampy love story. And since many of the scenes and dialogues with the students are fast and witty, I can benignly pardon the fact that the love affair plot is far more reactionary and clearly less quirky than in the writer-director's previous smash hit "Türkisch für Anfäger" (at one point, Lisi's sassy girlfriend advises her to lose the glasses or she'll never get laid).I ususally don't like Katja Riemann, but she really delivers an outstanding performance here (compared to the lukewarm efforts of M'Barek and Herfurth) as the cynical principal, and Uschi Glass reprises her "Lümmel von der ersten Bank" days as a worn-out teacher.