"Ein Fall von Liebe - Saubermänner" is a German television film from 2011, so this one has its tenth anniversary later this year. It runs for 1.5 hours, minimally under, as the usually do and let me start with the basics here. As you can see from the title already, this is not a standalone movie. There was one before that and one that followed afterwards dealing with the same characters and background of a law firm. And as if this was not enough already, this even got turned into a series afterwards. Trilogues on ARD etc. are not a total rarity, but really making a regular series out of these movies kinda is. And judging from the quality here, it is not a good thing at all. Good news is the last episode is from five years ago or so, so one can only hope this will not be continued. But now, let's focus on this film we got here: First of all, I shall try to explain the title a bit. What you see left of the hyphen is a little play on words linked to the law and the profession of lawyers. Nothing too creative, just like the film itself. "A case of Love" you could say. Sounds very cringeworthy alright. On the right side of the hyphen, you have the word "Saubermänner". This is impossible to translate pretty much. But it means something like people with apparently a clean sheet that are still involved in shady actions and may not have the greatest and most honorable approach to moral. Another play on words that is of course linked to the women in here that are illegally employed as cleaning woman. But of course, the men employing them (or the man) is referenced here in the title. No surprise either After all, this is an ARD Degeto movie and these are not only almost always really bad, but also really anti-male most of the time. I will elaborate a bit on that later. As for the two people that were most involved with the making here, i.e. the writer and director, the only interesting thing about them may be their exotic names. But don't be fooled, they have worked on German-language projects for a long time. Jorgo Papavassiliou did so since the beginning of his career early on in the 2000s and del Mestre also since the beginning of his career in 1980 already. That's been a while for sure. The latter's early career efforts were still kinda decent at times, bit looking at recent years, it's an embarrassment with films like this, Traumschiff, Bülowbogen and all kinds of other terrible (quality-wise) projects for the small screen here in my country. Kinda shocking to see people who have been in the industry for so long and who are still (or again) on such a low level when it comes to inspired productions. As for the case, the man you see on the right on the imdb photo here is Francis Fulton-Smith. I have come across him on several projects recently, some okay, some not so much. This is certainly one of the latter and that is still a gentle way to put it. As you can see from the title of my review, I am not happy at all with him being part of films like this. I liked him for example in a film where he played some loser character fairly recently and that character then turns into a winner while having to deal with his new love's annoying son. But he has also been in so many horrible movies. Disappointing. I would not call it a wasted career, but he has much more talent than he shows us most of the time because of the career choices he made. Or maybe good for him that he went for money instead of inspiration because with all the GEZ money behind it, these Degeto movies sure pay well. The quality never reaches the production though, let alone the viewers. Only simple people can like stuff like that. And FFS should know himself, he is better than this, for example also through the accolades he received for playing Franz Josef Strauß a while ago. As for the supporting cast, it is a double-edged sword. Mariella Ahrens is simply a terrible actress with no talent and almost on the same level like Neubauer and Thomalla. I wish she would not have been in this film. The main antagonist is played by Michael Kind. Well, he was in "Der Untergang" and is not a bad actor, but what can you do with characters written like that. Same applies to Susanne Bormann, only with a different Oscar-nominated movie and Bernhard Bettermann was also in stuff I liked. So the cast is really not bad. They could have done something with these people (except Ahrens), but the reality is that not even the most talented cast (and we sure don't have that here) could have turned this abysmal script into something worth watching.
Bormann is surprisingly first credit here. She is not the lead obviously. I thought that maybe they are going with an alphabetical order, but then Ahrens would have been before her. No clue. I guess the lack of attention to detail is not only part of the movie, but also part of the film's imdb page because the folks with the task of creating this page messed up once again. By the way, the film is set in Leipzig, but I feel that even for people from this big city it is not a rewarding watch because locations and places never played a role here. Anyway, back to Bormann: Her character was maybe the worst of them all. Associated with the bad guys early on, she manages to sneak her way into the law firm of the good guys and in the end, somehow she changes sides. Yeah, sure. And FFS's character sees right through it, huh? I did not believe it one but. But the worst moment was probably the seduction scene in the hotel. Sad to see Bormann stopp this low and accept characters like that. unreal stuff. During that scene, of course Ahrens' character enters the room out of nowhere. I don't even. What was she doing there? Being kinda undercover to expose a man who illegally employs people. Complete nonsense. Just like the moment early on when it becomes clear that the two lovers (played by Ahrens and FFS) are working on a case that kinda causes conflict between them. What a coincidence! Oh and another horrible moment we got here is when Ahrens' character gets her big self-confident winning moment near the end when she is still in that cleaning lady's outfit and all her "colleagues" all of a sudden stand up against the evil boss. What did the boss do? He threatened the child of an employee if that employee tells the police what he did. Careful, severe crime there. This is a messive joke anyway. Just take the initial courtroom scene. What happens there? So much. So many revelations. The old woman has demential The alcohol test was not valid and the key witness changes her statement to take away guilt from the accused. Ridiculous stuff in the most negative sense possible. Probably in the last 30 years, there has not been a single similar example of courtroom action. This was already the moment when I knew this film would suck from beginning to end. Just take the scenes with the talk about Bormann's character being attractive. Unwatchable. Or Ahrens' statements about FFS's character possibly being unfaithful. This is where the anti-male component comes into play. He is a guy, so he employs the hot young woman of course. This needed to be done because this film is almost exclusively for female audiences. By the way, FFS reminded me a bit of Jason Bateman here physically. The only one with a really clean sheet is Ahrens' character. That is also why she gets away with saying she wants her man to see she suffers when he tells her he loves her. Really nice. Ditch the b***h. But of course not, he has to fight for her attention for the rest of the movie and in the end he tells her he wants to move in with her and she agrees and is happy. By the way, Ahrens somehow reminds me of Natalia Wörner (also approximately same age), another terrible German actress with an Eastern European background I think and I have zero doubts Ahrens would have hooked up with our glorious Heiko Maas as well, the man who loses his region comfortable to Peter Altmaier of all people, and, as a reward, gets chosen to be the next foreign minister, although they know very well people don't want him one bit, but minister duties are not chosen by the people and the fact that they know is obvious through the fact that Maas was never considered to run for chancellor next year. Okay, sorry for drifting away, but this needed to be said and those people who watch and like this film (although I am sure they will never show up here and read my review) are the ones who must understand finally. Kinda fitting too that several characters have the last name Wörner in this film. Back to the movie, earlier I said that during a speficic moment, I knew exactly it would suck until the end, but truth is I knew way earlier, namely when our caring protagonist is asked by the sleazy bad guys if he wants to work with them very early on, but he declines the offer and leaves and two steps further gives money to a homeless fella. Sigh. The epitome of pretentious. They are shoving it all in and clearly have not heard about the fact that sometimes less is more. Well, "they" is Ulrich del Mestre in this scenario. He is the one fully to blame and shameful that he returned for the third film that I will probably review tomorrow and also for the following series. No need to think about it. I'm sure it all sucks, not just this one here. Occasionally, we also have a bit of overacting in here, especially from the women. Ahrens, Bormann and Reimann (yes, even her with the little she had to work with, especially during the scene when Bormann's character asks if she can take a look at something) are pretty messy in here, most of all Ahrens. The film started really low quality-wise and stays this way until the end with this unwatchable stolen bike scene. And how they tried to build up Bormann as a potential recurring antagonist character in future films. Seems they knew already this movie was not the end of it all. It should have been though. Or even better, never should have been made. Terrible film. Fat thumbs-down.
Bormann is surprisingly first credit here. She is not the lead obviously. I thought that maybe they are going with an alphabetical order, but then Ahrens would have been before her. No clue. I guess the lack of attention to detail is not only part of the movie, but also part of the film's imdb page because the folks with the task of creating this page messed up once again. By the way, the film is set in Leipzig, but I feel that even for people from this big city it is not a rewarding watch because locations and places never played a role here. Anyway, back to Bormann: Her character was maybe the worst of them all. Associated with the bad guys early on, she manages to sneak her way into the law firm of the good guys and in the end, somehow she changes sides. Yeah, sure. And FFS's character sees right through it, huh? I did not believe it one but. But the worst moment was probably the seduction scene in the hotel. Sad to see Bormann stopp this low and accept characters like that. unreal stuff. During that scene, of course Ahrens' character enters the room out of nowhere. I don't even. What was she doing there? Being kinda undercover to expose a man who illegally employs people. Complete nonsense. Just like the moment early on when it becomes clear that the two lovers (played by Ahrens and FFS) are working on a case that kinda causes conflict between them. What a coincidence! Oh and another horrible moment we got here is when Ahrens' character gets her big self-confident winning moment near the end when she is still in that cleaning lady's outfit and all her "colleagues" all of a sudden stand up against the evil boss. What did the boss do? He threatened the child of an employee if that employee tells the police what he did. Careful, severe crime there. This is a messive joke anyway. Just take the initial courtroom scene. What happens there? So much. So many revelations. The old woman has demential The alcohol test was not valid and the key witness changes her statement to take away guilt from the accused. Ridiculous stuff in the most negative sense possible. Probably in the last 30 years, there has not been a single similar example of courtroom action. This was already the moment when I knew this film would suck from beginning to end. Just take the scenes with the talk about Bormann's character being attractive. Unwatchable. Or Ahrens' statements about FFS's character possibly being unfaithful. This is where the anti-male component comes into play. He is a guy, so he employs the hot young woman of course. This needed to be done because this film is almost exclusively for female audiences. By the way, FFS reminded me a bit of Jason Bateman here physically. The only one with a really clean sheet is Ahrens' character. That is also why she gets away with saying she wants her man to see she suffers when he tells her he loves her. Really nice. Ditch the b***h. But of course not, he has to fight for her attention for the rest of the movie and in the end he tells her he wants to move in with her and she agrees and is happy. By the way, Ahrens somehow reminds me of Natalia Wörner (also approximately same age), another terrible German actress with an Eastern European background I think and I have zero doubts Ahrens would have hooked up with our glorious Heiko Maas as well, the man who loses his region comfortable to Peter Altmaier of all people, and, as a reward, gets chosen to be the next foreign minister, although they know very well people don't want him one bit, but minister duties are not chosen by the people and the fact that they know is obvious through the fact that Maas was never considered to run for chancellor next year. Okay, sorry for drifting away, but this needed to be said and those people who watch and like this film (although I am sure they will never show up here and read my review) are the ones who must understand finally. Kinda fitting too that several characters have the last name Wörner in this film. Back to the movie, earlier I said that during a speficic moment, I knew exactly it would suck until the end, but truth is I knew way earlier, namely when our caring protagonist is asked by the sleazy bad guys if he wants to work with them very early on, but he declines the offer and leaves and two steps further gives money to a homeless fella. Sigh. The epitome of pretentious. They are shoving it all in and clearly have not heard about the fact that sometimes less is more. Well, "they" is Ulrich del Mestre in this scenario. He is the one fully to blame and shameful that he returned for the third film that I will probably review tomorrow and also for the following series. No need to think about it. I'm sure it all sucks, not just this one here. Occasionally, we also have a bit of overacting in here, especially from the women. Ahrens, Bormann and Reimann (yes, even her with the little she had to work with, especially during the scene when Bormann's character asks if she can take a look at something) are pretty messy in here, most of all Ahrens. The film started really low quality-wise and stays this way until the end with this unwatchable stolen bike scene. And how they tried to build up Bormann as a potential recurring antagonist character in future films. Seems they knew already this movie was not the end of it all. It should have been though. Or even better, never should have been made. Terrible film. Fat thumbs-down.
