Frei:Gespielt - Mehmet Scholl - Über das Spiel hinaus (2007)

Wonderful character development!

One of my all time favorites.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

What a dramatic story this documentary could have told: of the most gifted player of his generation, who, as his contemporary German players, couldn't fulfill his promise and who, even in his biggest triumphs, always was accompanied by failure.Unfortunately, this is rather an overlong news-clip than a meticulously planned documentary.First of all, this would-be-documentary completely lacks relevant sources: the only primary sources are Scholl himself, Bayern's president Hoeness, and former Teammate Fink. That's it! No parents, friends, wives, teammates, opponents, football managers - nothing! To make things even worse, there are by far to too few meetings with the already scarce sources. With Hoeness, there is only one session, obviously without any in-depth preparation, so Hoeness accordingly swaggers along without wit or structure. With Fink, it's one session and with Scholl maybe five at maximum.So there is footage for maybe 15-20 minutes. But to my great distress, the doc runs another 64 minutes. How do the directors fill the gap? For about 50 minutes, they have other people talk. People who aren't closer to the subject or don't know more about it than the average football fan, but who happen to be well known, e.g. former German secretary of state Joschka Fischer, a singer of a petty Munich band, TV-hosts etc - it's absolutely maddening having to watch these narcissistic idiots delivering ZERO information.The other 14 minutes we are shown Scholl most famous scenes, which could have been a very good thing, hadn't it been ruined by the completely unmotivated rock music, which is poured over the pictures.Needless to say that the documentary neither shows dramatical structure to speak of nor does it place the story in a wider context. Since Scholl's failure, as measured by his talent, is emblematic for his generation's failure, for the German national team has never been less successful than between 1996 and 2002.My conclusion? The story of Scholl (and his generation) has yet to be told!