"Hopfensommer" is a German television film from 2011, so thiese 1.5 hours will have their 10th anniversary next year. Or maybe it happened already depending on when you read this review. The director is Christian Wagner and actually his body of work is not shabby at all. For example, I really liked his relatively recent "Das Ende der Geduld". He has other decent films in his filmography, so I am pretty surprised to see him as the man in charge behind the camera when it comes to this mess here. Then again, not even the most gifted filmmaker can a totally garbage script into a good movie. And this description fits Hermann Kirchmann's penning here for sure. His body of work is otherwise also fairly weak, not horribly bad, but still pretty poor, so this explains the quality of the script here as well. Or the lack thereof. However, he is not the only one to blame. Ulrike Stephan is his co-writer. No clue who she is. She never worked on a film before this one (according to imdb) and probably never will afterwards if we look at the amount of time passed since then. Kinda embarrassing though that these two did not fix each other's mistakes, but apparently brought out just the worst in each other. So probably a good thing Stephan is not working anymore. As for the cast, I don't think there is much potential either. The only pretty talented man here is Elmar Wepper. I think he has a lot more range and versatility than his brother Fritz, but with such a script and rest of the cast, he cannot turn water into wine either. Fritz Karl plays Wepper's character son here and the more I see from Karl, the more disappointed I am. Like a decade ago, I still thought he was a decent actor, but now all I can say is that he is not good at all in most of the stuff he is in. Still way better than his partner, but that is really only becaue she is terriibly untalented. Gaby Dohm is another actress who fits the description "terribly untalented" incredibly well. Yes, she is this bad. However, she was not a total miss here like she is other films. I assume she is better with dramatic material, serious material than with comedy where she really really sucks, especially in these anti-male errrrr. I mean female-centered comedies by ARD Degeto, who produced this one here as well. Of course, it also helps that Dohm has not a lot of screen time and basically all she does is suggest her husband to talk to his son about a tragedy from the past. That's pretty much it cast-wise. Ah yes, Christina Hecke too, she plays the younger protagonist's love interest. Or one of the two love interests. Yeah, she is pretty terrible as well. Also in other stuff I have seen. Pretty much every role is too challenging for her "talent". Just like in here. In general, you could once again say that at times this is an anti-male movie. The women possess heart, reason and gighting spirit, while the men are rude, impatient and stubborn. No surprise. Like I said ARD Degeto usually uses this formula as their films are mostly for female audiences and with somebody who actually thinks these are decent films (not even good ones), they can get away with much more stupidity than genderism.
Okay, now a few scenes and moments that are clear evidence of the fact that we have a terrible film here. For the first, I must say something about the key premise here. We have a (relatively) young man return to his home village after a long time. He left back then because his father accused him of not taking care well enough of his sister when the latter dies in a drowning accident. So what happens first when Karl's character is back? Yep right, he sees a girl in danger in the water and jumps in and probably saves her life. Very realistic that it happens a second time and now he reacts properly. Sigh. They wanted to show us that the man has improved, is not a bad person etc. and that we must like him. It's not smart, it's not creative, it's just all kinds of false. As if the older man's heart attack was not enough of a coincidence already. Heart attacks to family members, especially close members like parents, don't happen every day. So yeah, from the realism perspective this film is really impossible to be taken seriously. You can also take the flashback sequence at the end as a perfect example. It is pretty decent, also with how Wepper looks younger or we do not see him that well to recognize, but the "you are guilty" at the end is once again an example of total lack of subtlety and weak writing and filmmaking. They want the utmost emotion, but offer the least talent. There are more cringeworthy scenes in here, like fight sequences on two occasions, one at a night club where Hecke's character works as a stripper. Both felt for the sake of it and scripted. Also why was that guy from early on again at the strip club? Does he live there? Sigh. As for Hecke's character, she also gets her embarrassing plot twist. She says running a farm as the female in charge is nothing she could ever do and Karl's character needs another woman. Maybe the childhood sweetheart? No. At the end, all of a sudden Hecke's character is inside a farm vehicle, yep tractor is the word, and likes it all of a sudden, so she was wrong. Ask yourself: If you had to live a week from now on a farm and help and work hard there, would you like it? It doesn't matter what the answer is, yes, no? Unimportant. But you would know if you liked it. That's my point. They are really thinking the audience must be stupid. But yeah, like I said, if they dig this movie, then maybe they are. What else is there to say? Oh yeah, a disappearance again. They got no child character to create fake drama like that this time, so they picked (the sick) Wepper's simply. Did feel as unauthentic as everything else. By the way, what was up with Dohm's character's visit at the hospital? Was she at the wrong room? I have no clue. But no matter what it was, it was another failed shot (at comedy). There are many. I could probably write another two paragraphs about this film here and why it is the exact opposite of a quality watch, of a creative achievement, but I think I will leave it at that now. The sooner I forget about this film the better, even if there is no denying that ARD Degeto has also released way worse stuff in the past already, but this only says that some of their stuff is extremely horrible and this film here is just horrible. No justification for this movie to still be shown such a long time after its original release. With its tenth anniversary, it'd better disappear into oblivion. A certain contender for worst career effort for the more talented Wepper. Big thumbs-down and I highly recommend skipping the watch here.
Okay, now a few scenes and moments that are clear evidence of the fact that we have a terrible film here. For the first, I must say something about the key premise here. We have a (relatively) young man return to his home village after a long time. He left back then because his father accused him of not taking care well enough of his sister when the latter dies in a drowning accident. So what happens first when Karl's character is back? Yep right, he sees a girl in danger in the water and jumps in and probably saves her life. Very realistic that it happens a second time and now he reacts properly. Sigh. They wanted to show us that the man has improved, is not a bad person etc. and that we must like him. It's not smart, it's not creative, it's just all kinds of false. As if the older man's heart attack was not enough of a coincidence already. Heart attacks to family members, especially close members like parents, don't happen every day. So yeah, from the realism perspective this film is really impossible to be taken seriously. You can also take the flashback sequence at the end as a perfect example. It is pretty decent, also with how Wepper looks younger or we do not see him that well to recognize, but the "you are guilty" at the end is once again an example of total lack of subtlety and weak writing and filmmaking. They want the utmost emotion, but offer the least talent. There are more cringeworthy scenes in here, like fight sequences on two occasions, one at a night club where Hecke's character works as a stripper. Both felt for the sake of it and scripted. Also why was that guy from early on again at the strip club? Does he live there? Sigh. As for Hecke's character, she also gets her embarrassing plot twist. She says running a farm as the female in charge is nothing she could ever do and Karl's character needs another woman. Maybe the childhood sweetheart? No. At the end, all of a sudden Hecke's character is inside a farm vehicle, yep tractor is the word, and likes it all of a sudden, so she was wrong. Ask yourself: If you had to live a week from now on a farm and help and work hard there, would you like it? It doesn't matter what the answer is, yes, no? Unimportant. But you would know if you liked it. That's my point. They are really thinking the audience must be stupid. But yeah, like I said, if they dig this movie, then maybe they are. What else is there to say? Oh yeah, a disappearance again. They got no child character to create fake drama like that this time, so they picked (the sick) Wepper's simply. Did feel as unauthentic as everything else. By the way, what was up with Dohm's character's visit at the hospital? Was she at the wrong room? I have no clue. But no matter what it was, it was another failed shot (at comedy). There are many. I could probably write another two paragraphs about this film here and why it is the exact opposite of a quality watch, of a creative achievement, but I think I will leave it at that now. The sooner I forget about this film the better, even if there is no denying that ARD Degeto has also released way worse stuff in the past already, but this only says that some of their stuff is extremely horrible and this film here is just horrible. No justification for this movie to still be shown such a long time after its original release. With its tenth anniversary, it'd better disappear into oblivion. A certain contender for worst career effort for the more talented Wepper. Big thumbs-down and I highly recommend skipping the watch here.
