filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Alles auf Zucker!" or "Go for Zucker!" or just "Zucker" is a German movie from 2004, so this one is already way over a decade old as well. It runs for roughly 1.5 hours and it is among the most known works by director and co-writer Dani Levy and lead actor Henry Hübchen. Buth received a great deal of awards attention here, for example at the German Film Awards. I have no idea why that is really. It may have to do with Levy's Jewish background and that he makes a movie about Jewery that has nothing to do with the years of Nazi Germany or war crimes, but is a more modern take on the subject. And maybe comedies on this subject are actually really rare, especially here in Germany. But this alone does not make it a good film. I myself cannot say I enjoyed the watch very much, let alone that this was really entertaining or deep. Hübchen is okay for the most part, but even if I like him I cannot really deny that his performances sometimes look very much alike. A German Film award may have been too much. A nomination may have been fine too. And Hannelore Elsner's nomination is definitely way too much. She was not lead and she did not give a portrayal that was memorable whatsoever. In my opinion, the film lacks clear focus on some occasions and when it doesn't, it is also merely okay from the perspective of story-telling. I wish I could at least recommend this to snooker players worldwide, but this is also not the case as this story-line was not as memorable as it could have been either. So what stays eventually? Not much. It is in my opinion not even among the better German films of 2004 and it's outrageous this film dominated back then over "Sophie Scholl" and "Downfall". I have no idea how anybody could think this one is better than these two Oscar nominated films really. Absolutely no idea. "Alles auf Zucker!" is not a really bad film by any means, but it never gets beyond mediocre quality, even if you ignore all the unrealistic moments it has. I personally would call it something you'd get if a Coen Bros movie goes very wrong, which luckily never happened really, a very poor man's version of "A Serious Man" almost. Don't watch.

Karl Self Americans have quested for a long while for the "Great American Novel"; the French have battled for an atom bomb that produces more than a mere farting noise and which won't expose them to the ridicule of the natives; the British have long since tried to create a beer that doesn't evoke connotations of warm urine. On a similar ticket, Germans have been searching high and low for the fabled "Decent German Comedy", the storied holy grail of German culture and proof that the "master race" can jape and jest with the best. Whereas the arrival of "Alles auf Zucker!" doesn't herald the "Endsieg" in that department yet, it at least manages to pass the touchstone test of being "somewhat more preferable to a unanesthetized root canal treatment" and even to be oftentimes genuinely amusing. It manages to shine through world-class-heavyweight acting (especially by Hannelore Elsner and the hitherto-unknown-to-me Henry Hübchen), fast direction and camera-work and an insolent script. And besides, it is a movie about German Jews that isn't a moralistic tear-jerker, so director Dani Levy really scores a hattrick here.***Slight Spoilers Ahoy!*** But there is also a slew of undeniable downsides: first of, the entire plot comes across as somewhat construed, scripted and make-believe, although this is somewhat compensated for by the movie's enormous speed; but still you can't escape the impression that the makers borrowed heavily from Woody Allen, et al. However I was genuinely disgusted by the fact that the four cousins are "romantically linked", as if this quasi-incest would constitute only a slight and ultimately hilarious misdemeanour (there even is a scene which shows two of the cousins snogging with a conservative rabbi in attendance, which really pushes the envelope of good taste and credibility). Also the affair between Jana and Jakob ten years ago consitutes a plot-hole, since the entire movie is based on the fact that the two brothers Jacky and Samuel haven't been in touch since the erection of the "Mauer". And finally I had the impression that the movie sells out its laudably knuckle-hard humour for a sappy ending when Jacky states from the off that he now reads the Torah and attends the synagogue, although this transformation from fast-mouthed atheist to zealot comes entirely out of nowhere.In brief, not a perfect but rather a surprisingly good movie.

Thom-Peters It was praised to be a fast paced screwball comedy and the best German movie of the year, so I gave it a try, even though I've already seen some films by Dani Levy - or at least parts of them.I got what I had expected: no comedy at all, unless you think that heart attacks are funny. It's a fine example of sloppy screen writing, with an implausible plot and characters, loaded with clichés that might be true, but surely are not funny either.The most annoying character is that of Zucker's wife, played by Hannelore Elsner. She has to behave incredibly strange to keep the plot moving. For example: She doesn't know a single thing about Judaism, but by reasons most likely unknown to even herself she gets the idea to play the charade that she and her family are Jewish laws obeying Jews for her husband's family, who really are, and of the very orthodox and self-righteous variety. To make it a bit more complicated, she invites the four of them to stay at her city flat, because they arrive from Frankfurt in Berlin without having booked their hotels in advance, something no 60 years old business man, actually no grown-up German would ever do. This gives the viewer a lot to swallow, but still fails to produce any jokes.Zucker and his brother Samuel haven't seen each other for forty years, but it turns out that his daughter - now a lesbian - and Samuel's son - now a militant orthodox - were once lovers, and he's HER daughter's father. Samuel's daughter - a nympho - goes after Zucker's gay son. Is this supposed to be a somehow humorous parody of Jewish incestuous tendencies? Probably it's just a thoughtless way to add some "love action turbulence" every screwball comedy needs. And of course is also fails to produce any jokes.The praise for this movie is purely political. Therefore only people who enjoy watching movies that are supposed to be "politically important" will enjoy this one - even though "Alles auf Zucker!" quite clearly has no importance of any kind.For all the rest: Don't watch it without a "Fast forward"-option. I really missed it.

missmarmite Wow, I can't say for how long I have been waiting for a film like this! I was always looking enviously over to America where they have films with, say, a dozen characters and one of them happens to be Jewish. But neither the Shoah is mentioned, nor Israel nor any other "typically Jewish" topics. These characters are Jewish like others are catholic or Mormon or atheist. Great. We never had this here in the last decades and I wondered when at last we would be treated to films like that made in Germany.This film might not be 100% brilliant, but it's funny, it's very good and worth its while and money. Originally made only for Arte TV, they decided to get it into cinema first. And what a great idea this was! Hopefully more films like this will follow, so that we all can go another step on the way back to normal. Because it is normal to see black German characters, Turkish-German characters and Jewish German characters and what else in films and series and plays. So, writers, sit yourself down and write. Directors and producers are hopefully waiting for good scripts! They better be...