Suck Me Shakespeer (2013)

If there ever was a film that made me feel it was geared for being sold up for a Hollywood remake - this was it, what with pseudo-hip-hop slang and American pop-numbers in the soundtrack. It's okay enough in its own right (just like the main character is okay at being a teacher), but it does look like it's planning on scoring big-time (again, just like the main character).Whether I'm right or wrong about that, we're looking at a German flick that wants to be as edgy as is demanded from European films, but ends up bogged down by cookie-cutter cop-outs, in true American style. It's at its edgiest in the title itself, then in some scenes that involve teacher-student relations and then in the very premise that the best suited person for being a teacher nowadays is - an ex-con.The ex-con, the central character, gets out of prison and finds out that the money from the robbery he was jailed for ended up buried on the school ground. He applies for a vacated teacher's spot in a bid to extract the loot, but finds out that teaching rowdy teenagers is slightly more than he bargained for. Not a new formula for the plot, but it works very efficiently. The character of Mr. Miller is written as a rude, no-nonsense guy, and many successful jokes stem from that fact. Also, the dialog is sometimes witty, quite unexpected of them Germans.Bad, unfortunately, outweighs the good just enough to give the effort a mere middle mark. The actor in the main role, while being very handsome and having a striking on-screen appeal, gives an unbalanced performance. Many times he acts out instead of just acting and other times he merely recites the lines. The rest of the cast is also as mediocre, but in their case that isn't such a problem since their characters are written as predictable clichés anyway and don't have to carry the film.The story itself doesn't squeeze enough out of the premise and goes for clichéd resolutions way too often. Subplots are underwritten (such as ex-con's relation to his former mates), forced (the love story) or thrown in out of the blue (the theatre play), while one crucial possibility, that the police might also be snooping around trying to recover the loot, is completely forgotten.Clocking at 110 minutes, this is by no means a light feature. Some scenes drag on unnecessarily, especially attempts at slapstick that never really come out right. Instead of trimming down the fat, the director tried to cover up the lack of pace by - choppy editing. This is the single most outstanding technical problem in "Fack ju, Göhte" - the cuts are often so fast and abrupt they get in the way of the flow and the plot. Because of that, many scenes never have the time to really sink in, not even the draggy ones, and the comedic potential is thus lost.Also standing out as really bad is ending the story with a typical politically correct "feelgood" closure, where an interesting societal outcast is turned into a castrated and "useful" member of the community. It makes me regard this film as one big predictable hoax and it makes me hope for a Hollywood remake, seeing how it will actually be an improvement for once.

I can honestly say I have never watched a German comedy before (Excepting Goodbye Lenin), but this was way better than expected. It's everything Bad Teacher could have been and more.Firstly, it's genuinely funny - petty criminal becomes substitute teacher sounds weak but here the relationships and the script have a lot of zing and deliver.Even though the arc is fairly by the numbers, the plot detailing is excellent, with fresh siutations and a strong romantic subplot. The cast are all on point and very likable, particularly the stars. All in all we liked it a lot - it's fun, consistently funny, has heart, and is definitely one of the better comedies of 2014.

But only if those numbers include swearing and nudity. Not much of it, but you should be aware that Germans (or its censorship) have less issues with skin than they have with violence. The movie and its rating would not come out the same in America. And although it was really successful, I don't see any US remake in the future.What I did see though, is a movie that touches a nerve with the youth (in Germany). For better or worse that is the way they interact with each other. Apart from that, we also have the old cliché that women fall for the bad guy. A guy who treats women like garbage. Opposites attract, but movies do go at a length to make this really clear.Still the movie is funny and if you are not too uptight about those things you will be able to enjoy it, flaws aside obviously

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.