"Die letzten Millionen" is a German television film from 2014, so this one had its fifth anniversary last year. The director of these slightly under 1.5 hours is Udo Witte and if you take a look at the gigantic amount of television projects this man has worked since the 1980s, you will immediately realize that quantity does not equal quality. There are many really really bad films and shows included there and that now, almost at the age of 70, he is still directing Inga Lindströn adaptations, makes it very obvious that there is no talent involved here behind the camera. The writers aren't really any better. Philipp Müller and Lo Malinke have worked together on several films in 2014 and 2015, many of them starring Michael Gwisdek just like this one here, but none of them really offering any memorable quality. The good news is that Müller apparently is no longer making films while Malinke has moved on to work on Til Schweiger's most recent really horrible big screen releases. But we shall talk about those on another occasion. As for this one here, it is very obvious that the (lack of) talent by the key crew members here would result in this film being a big mess. And this is exactly how it turned out. The cast is not particularly good either, but you can say in their favor that the script was so bad at times that not even the most talented actors on the planet could have made it work. First in the cast list is the previously mentioned Gwisdek and he is certainly the most known cast member. However, his inclusion here certainly resulted in some fairly famous and experienced (television) actors joining the project. These would be Loos, Karusseit, Pleitgen, Gruber, Schöne, Winter and Grossmann, probably more. The latter is always easy to recognize and identify. To me at least, especially because there are not too many younger actors with screen time in this film we have here. As for Gwisdek, he is of course also easy to identify, but in my opinion his entire career is built on recognition value and charisma really. I never saw much talent in him. He plays the same character in almost every film he is in. An older man, filled with experience about life and willing to share said experience, but at the same time there are many moments where he shows us he has still stayed a normal guy. Here these would be about sex most of the time and how he uses drugs to have better the sex. Or really one scene that included both was when he talked to Loos' character what she should focus on in terms of her heart and ten seconds later he says he really needs to pee. Honestly, this could have been taken from every Gwisdek film. Pretty embarrassing, espcially in the face of his son Robert being a really talented actor in my opinion. He is not in this film though. As for Loos, her character did almost nothing for me here. The only thing that came to my mind is how her man Jan Josef Liefers (they are still a couple aren't they?) has appeared in a similar film about a gang of old people experiencing the pleasures of life again, even with a similar job.
Okay, as for the story here. The film starts with the idea that a bunch of people living in a home for retired people make it big and win several millions in the lottery. This would be enough coincidence already for two movies, but here it really is just the beginning. What happened next was actually almost the only aspect I liked from this movie/script, namely that the old people are far from super excited about this, but stay rational because they know they do not have that much time left, so maybe their lives won't change at all. Or maybe some don't even want them to change at all. This is a bit of a conflict between living and using all the money to improve the quality of their lives, but also stay protected somehow. The once big difference is Gisdek's character. He enjoys life to the fullest, has constantly sex apparently now, goes clubbing (okay he could have done that without the money too) etc. Still, the negative consequence for him is that his heart could not deal with the performance-enhancing drugs and he lands in the hospital. Another guy lands in the water and we were supposed to be worried if he drowns. But that one is just a supporting player. At the center of it all, it is rarely about anybody else than Gwisdek's character. And sadly, many of his moments, also the more memorable ones, felt authentic and realistic as if I was watching actual people and not just actors in a role. This also includes the heart attack. It felt like drama for the sake of it honestly, also how he dies in the end and they celebrate his life without mourning much, but are happy for him that he lived life to the fullest. Kinda telling that the film ended with that forced happy ending immediately afterwards pretty much because once the central character was gone, the audience's interest in the stories had certainly vanished too. If it had been there in the first place already. So yeah, maybe my biggest criticism when it comes to this film is that they included so many characters and acted as if we were supposed to take each and every one of these seriously from the storytelling perspective, yet they barely delivered any stories about those. They basically want us to deeply care for everybody here without even putting any effort in to make us care. Not gonna work like that. This is a key criticism when it comes to 90% of television movies here in Germany these days, especially those that are not crime films and not airing during prime time. Afternoon stuff I am talking about. The German television movie industry is really in a bad place right now. Has been for a long time in fact and if the quality stays the way it is with films like this one here, then there will be no change foor the better happening soon. The most disgusting thing is really that they are trying to sell us this film as quality entertainment and many simple people actually fall for this. If you tell it to them frequently enough, they eventually believe it and happily pay almost 20 bucks each and every month to keep getting fooled by the filmmakers here. You can't even blame them. Of course, movies like this keep getting made if the audiences won't rise up abainst this abomination. Sigh. I applaud those that see through this charade. This movie here gets a fat thumbs-down from me. Highly not recommended. Except for the simple-minded of course.
Okay, as for the story here. The film starts with the idea that a bunch of people living in a home for retired people make it big and win several millions in the lottery. This would be enough coincidence already for two movies, but here it really is just the beginning. What happened next was actually almost the only aspect I liked from this movie/script, namely that the old people are far from super excited about this, but stay rational because they know they do not have that much time left, so maybe their lives won't change at all. Or maybe some don't even want them to change at all. This is a bit of a conflict between living and using all the money to improve the quality of their lives, but also stay protected somehow. The once big difference is Gisdek's character. He enjoys life to the fullest, has constantly sex apparently now, goes clubbing (okay he could have done that without the money too) etc. Still, the negative consequence for him is that his heart could not deal with the performance-enhancing drugs and he lands in the hospital. Another guy lands in the water and we were supposed to be worried if he drowns. But that one is just a supporting player. At the center of it all, it is rarely about anybody else than Gwisdek's character. And sadly, many of his moments, also the more memorable ones, felt authentic and realistic as if I was watching actual people and not just actors in a role. This also includes the heart attack. It felt like drama for the sake of it honestly, also how he dies in the end and they celebrate his life without mourning much, but are happy for him that he lived life to the fullest. Kinda telling that the film ended with that forced happy ending immediately afterwards pretty much because once the central character was gone, the audience's interest in the stories had certainly vanished too. If it had been there in the first place already. So yeah, maybe my biggest criticism when it comes to this film is that they included so many characters and acted as if we were supposed to take each and every one of these seriously from the storytelling perspective, yet they barely delivered any stories about those. They basically want us to deeply care for everybody here without even putting any effort in to make us care. Not gonna work like that. This is a key criticism when it comes to 90% of television movies here in Germany these days, especially those that are not crime films and not airing during prime time. Afternoon stuff I am talking about. The German television movie industry is really in a bad place right now. Has been for a long time in fact and if the quality stays the way it is with films like this one here, then there will be no change foor the better happening soon. The most disgusting thing is really that they are trying to sell us this film as quality entertainment and many simple people actually fall for this. If you tell it to them frequently enough, they eventually believe it and happily pay almost 20 bucks each and every month to keep getting fooled by the filmmakers here. You can't even blame them. Of course, movies like this keep getting made if the audiences won't rise up abainst this abomination. Sigh. I applaud those that see through this charade. This movie here gets a fat thumbs-down from me. Highly not recommended. Except for the simple-minded of course.
