Horst_In_Translation Review of Pura vida Ibiza

Pura vida Ibiza (2004)

The cinematic equivalent to a Ballermann song

[2/10 · 12 September 2017]

"Pura vida Ibiza" is a German comedy film from 2004, so this one has its 15th anniversary soon and this one was directed by Gernot Roll, one of Germany's most successful cinematographers of all time and it is truly baffling how big the quality gap is between his work as a cinematographer and his work as a director and honestly I have no idea how he ends up in charge of films with garbage scripts like this one. This one here actually is a definite contender for his worst film and it's truly shocking to see no less than four writers being in charge of the screenplay. Luckily for everybody from the audience, the film stays under the 90-minute mark pretty easily. The three lead actors have acted recently on "In aller Freundschaft", "Das Traumschiff" and "Rote Rosen", which describes the range by the cast here pretty well. Even to German film buffs, none of the trio are really well-known. The supporting cast includes some more famous names that really don't add anything of value either. For me personally, the most shocking thing here was Horst Krause and I think he is a talented and likable actor, so I have absolutely no idea why he was showing up here as his character was also nothing short of embarrassingly bad. In this film you will be watching 3 young men for almost 1.5 hours on the island of Ibiza. They party, they make out, they engage in arguments with fat pale Englishmen or in drama that never feels authentic and engage in comedy that never feels funny. It was truly embarrassing really how big of a boring failure this film was. Especially those parts that were intended to be funny were the most cringeworthy. No idea why Tom Gerhardt is first-billed here as his screen time is minimal, but it fits absurdity of the entire project. Even Gerhardt's party comedies with Hilmi Sözer, who is part of the cast here too, were not as horrible and at the same time as forgettable as this one here. At least this Karl Dall film on Ibiza still has a bit of a funny trash tendency, but this one here even fails in that department. It's so bland overall. It has the entertainment value of a spat-out bone that not even the most undemanding dog would still sink his teeth into. Highly not recommended.