Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Teufelskicker" or "Devil's Kickers" is a German 110-minute film from 2010, so it's neither a relatively new or old film. The director and also one of the writers is Granz Henman and if you take a look at his other works, you basically know what to expect here quality-wise: mediocrity. But honestly that's not what you get. You get a really really bad film instead to be honest. Lead actor Henry Horn has not been in another film apparently before or after this one, but most recently appeared in one of these dreadful daily real-life soaps and that's not a surprise at all looking at his performance here. Amft, Fürmann, Rohde and M'Barek may be somewhat big names from Herman cinema, but they also appeared in many garbage films to be honest and still this one here is a contender for their worst. Their line delivery is as bad as the way the characters were written. And now we are already talking about the script. It is a complete joke to be honest. One example would be the football moves by the kids that are stuff that the love child from Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't do. And after 3 jumps and in-air salti they still kick the ball in a way where it results into a goal against the powerless goalie from the enemy team. Another problem is that they want us to see the kids as likable, but it is not working out entirely. They jump through the streets destroying harmless passengers' grocery bags. What the hell? Oh yeah they sure look really cool doing so. Now you could say that the film should be seen as a pointless guilty pleasure, but you would be wrong then as the contents include so much: (possible) divorce, discrimination, emancipation, age-related illness, father-son relationship etc. This is not a film that does not want to be taken seriously. It is a film that wants to be taken seriously, while come short in pretty much every single regard of the story. The moment when the film really hit rock-bottom was when they included all kinds of cooking references in cabin talk towards the end. Oh yeah "3 eggs instead of 4" means of course that they want to play with 3 defenders out of 4. But don't worry that one kid character is gonna translate the rubbish Amft's character is talking. It is difficult to admit, but this film is really even lower on the scale than the Wilde Kerle films, at least worse than the better ones and if you have seen them you know that these really really suck as well. Do yourself and your kid a favor if you don't want to ruin the way he/she perceives movies during the future and never let them know this film here even exists. Unless you, for whatever reason, see kids running around in the streets and passing balls to one another for several minutes as quality story-telling. Then it may even be too late for you.
