"Dieses bescheuerte Herz" or "This Crazy Heart" is a German movie from 2017, so neither really new but not too old either and it runs for slightly under 105 minutes. It came out for the Christmas holidays that year and was certainly above-average successful commercially for a German movie blending in nicely with what Hollywood had to offer during that time. This of course also had to do with lead actor Elyas M'Barek, who is definitely a crowd magnet these days, also with his F*ck Ju Göhte (guess I have to censor here or imdb won't let me upload this review) franchise and that one had its final chapter released actually really briefly before this one here hit cinemas. So this theatrical release was directed by Marc Rothemund, a fairly successful German filmmaker, even if his more recent works did not impress me too much. But they also were not really on failure level luckily, just nowhere near the level he reached with the Oscar-nominated film on Sophie Scholl and it is a bit sad to see him stoop down to the level of this one we have here looking at the greatness he reached with the one I just mentioned. So yeah, basically this one here is the story of a man around the age of 30 who has nothing on his mind but party all night long and is not interested in working either. And he still (or again) lives with his parents. So there are some parallels to Zeki you could say and also others to Schweiger in Keinohrhasen, but no matter what seems more fitting for you there is not really any denying that this is not the most original plot idea by any means. It's simply been done before and M'Barek is also not the actor with the amount of talent to breathe life into story lines like this. It is really typical for a German movie these days, a mix of comedy and drama that rarely delivers convincingly in any fields. And the romance component shall not miss too of course. But lets stay with the original idea first for now. Anyway, the main character's father, a workaholic doctor decides it is enough after his son crashes the garage or so at their house and tells him he will not get any money anymore before he does something useful, namely spends time with a really sick boy at a local hospice. There again you see the best example of how the film is scared to go for real tragedy/drama and that is typical for German films. Just do not get too serious under any circumstance. And stay 100% politically correct with current trends and tendencies. As far as I know people living at hospices are not too far away from death anymore, but there was never the possibility of the boy dying here really. Then again, the film is based on a novel and I have not read that one, so cannot say how close they stayed to the novel actually.
On a more positive note, I am really not a fan of M'Barek at all I must say, but here he was better than usual. Don't mistake better for good though. It probably helped that his counterpart Philip Noah Schwarz also played his challenging part well and the two had decent chemistry. But the writing was still abysmal at times. Take Uwe Preuss early on: He is a really established and prolific longtime actor working on all kinds of interesting projects these days, actually really baffling to see all he's been in in the last 5-10 years. And the moment he talks to his son early on about what he wants him to do still really felt very forced and scripted and I don't think Preuss is the problem that he lacks range or had bad line delivery, but really how his words were written. As for the characters' actions, it is not any better. The boy is highly depressed and suicidal and aside from the fact if it is a good idea to give him into the care of somebody who knows nothing about the subject, it is really ridiculous how quickly he improves really while spending time with M'Barek's character. And for the latter it is true too because he does not seem to care about anything or anybody early on and how qucikly he changes does not feel too authentic either. Same for smaller characters like the boy's mother who has some really weird views, but seems all too normal and likable all of a sudden. This is really the typical German movie from that approach. A forced happy ending in all departments, also the father-son relationship about the protagonist is totally fixed, M'Barek's character of course gets his love interest too and of course he also goes to medical school towards the end trying to make something of his live. It's so gooey honestly, just too much. Such a shame honestly because there were good moments that let me think the book could have been the basis for a far better movie that maybe would have lured fewer people into cinemas, but then it would have had more cinematic value. Lets call it that. I am referring to the scene when the boy meets the girl with the bouquet of flowers for the first time for example or also when he calls him his brother etc. There are good moments no denying. But overall the fact how generic and cold it all turned out despite how warm it wants to be is just disappointing. They took zero risks, this one is zero daring honestly, they just pulled through with ther program taking the safe route and the outcome all in all is accordingly. I am a bit surprised though that you do not really find too many big name actors here in this one. Honestly, it is the kind of film where I would have expected the likes of Uwe Ochsenknecht and Katja Riemann in supporting roles, but no. I guess they saved money there because they knew with M'Barek leading the field, there is no way this is gonna flop at the box office. And they were right. But this decision is not a problem at all. This movie has way bigger issues in my opinion. The ones I just mentioned. In its better moments, the film deserves a 3 out of 5 and thumbs-up, but these are not frequent enough for the running time, so the weak is more dominant than the strong here and I give "Dieses bescheuerte Herz" a thumbs-down all in all. Luckily, at least it did not molest us with a cheesy or equally unrealistic love story for M'Barek's character as the title could have implied too given the double meaning. But I guess this is also thanks to the original writers and not the screenplay writers. Oh yeah, the song playing at the end during the closing credits was good admittedly. Same about the Halleluja version also near the end when basically everything is solved although the images sure felt cringeworthy, the images that went with this amazing song I mean and the difference in quality between both was painfully obvious. This film again takes itself way more seriously than it has any right to and the (frequently clumsy) shots at comedy or "Galgenhumor" did absolutely not change anything about that. All that is wrong with German cinema (especially (part) comedies or lets say mix of drama and comedy) in a nutshell, even if it does not really hit rock-bottom really. But can you really blame the makers or cast here if it is films like this, other M'Barek projects and of course the Schweighöfer films against which this one here is a triumph, that really get German audiences to the movies. Maybe those who saw this one at the theater (and even worse, thought it was artistic filmmaking) should reconsider. Think again. Don't watch. Thumbs down.
On a more positive note, I am really not a fan of M'Barek at all I must say, but here he was better than usual. Don't mistake better for good though. It probably helped that his counterpart Philip Noah Schwarz also played his challenging part well and the two had decent chemistry. But the writing was still abysmal at times. Take Uwe Preuss early on: He is a really established and prolific longtime actor working on all kinds of interesting projects these days, actually really baffling to see all he's been in in the last 5-10 years. And the moment he talks to his son early on about what he wants him to do still really felt very forced and scripted and I don't think Preuss is the problem that he lacks range or had bad line delivery, but really how his words were written. As for the characters' actions, it is not any better. The boy is highly depressed and suicidal and aside from the fact if it is a good idea to give him into the care of somebody who knows nothing about the subject, it is really ridiculous how quickly he improves really while spending time with M'Barek's character. And for the latter it is true too because he does not seem to care about anything or anybody early on and how qucikly he changes does not feel too authentic either. Same for smaller characters like the boy's mother who has some really weird views, but seems all too normal and likable all of a sudden. This is really the typical German movie from that approach. A forced happy ending in all departments, also the father-son relationship about the protagonist is totally fixed, M'Barek's character of course gets his love interest too and of course he also goes to medical school towards the end trying to make something of his live. It's so gooey honestly, just too much. Such a shame honestly because there were good moments that let me think the book could have been the basis for a far better movie that maybe would have lured fewer people into cinemas, but then it would have had more cinematic value. Lets call it that. I am referring to the scene when the boy meets the girl with the bouquet of flowers for the first time for example or also when he calls him his brother etc. There are good moments no denying. But overall the fact how generic and cold it all turned out despite how warm it wants to be is just disappointing. They took zero risks, this one is zero daring honestly, they just pulled through with ther program taking the safe route and the outcome all in all is accordingly. I am a bit surprised though that you do not really find too many big name actors here in this one. Honestly, it is the kind of film where I would have expected the likes of Uwe Ochsenknecht and Katja Riemann in supporting roles, but no. I guess they saved money there because they knew with M'Barek leading the field, there is no way this is gonna flop at the box office. And they were right. But this decision is not a problem at all. This movie has way bigger issues in my opinion. The ones I just mentioned. In its better moments, the film deserves a 3 out of 5 and thumbs-up, but these are not frequent enough for the running time, so the weak is more dominant than the strong here and I give "Dieses bescheuerte Herz" a thumbs-down all in all. Luckily, at least it did not molest us with a cheesy or equally unrealistic love story for M'Barek's character as the title could have implied too given the double meaning. But I guess this is also thanks to the original writers and not the screenplay writers. Oh yeah, the song playing at the end during the closing credits was good admittedly. Same about the Halleluja version also near the end when basically everything is solved although the images sure felt cringeworthy, the images that went with this amazing song I mean and the difference in quality between both was painfully obvious. This film again takes itself way more seriously than it has any right to and the (frequently clumsy) shots at comedy or "Galgenhumor" did absolutely not change anything about that. All that is wrong with German cinema (especially (part) comedies or lets say mix of drama and comedy) in a nutshell, even if it does not really hit rock-bottom really. But can you really blame the makers or cast here if it is films like this, other M'Barek projects and of course the Schweighöfer films against which this one here is a triumph, that really get German audiences to the movies. Maybe those who saw this one at the theater (and even worse, thought it was artistic filmmaking) should reconsider. Think again. Don't watch. Thumbs down.