"Die Versuchung", which means "The Temptation", is a German television film that premiered back in 2004, so this one had its 15th anniversary last year. It runs for slightly under 1.5 hours as small screen releases usually do. There is not too much to say about director Fürneisen and writer Ewald. both have had pretty prolific careers and this is from the later stages of their bodies of work. However, if you take a look at all they worked on, it is easy to understand that you should absolutely not get your hopes of to watch a quality movie here. Both of them seem retired now and that is probably a good thing, although I am somewhat sure (sadly) there are equally untalented filmmakers out there ready to take their spot. As for the cast, i as a German film buff recognize some names and faces here. The female central character is played by Thekla Carola Wied, very overrated actress, and she is almost a guarantee most of the time for a film to turn out weak, if not pathetic. Walter Kreye, who plays her husband, a man of the church, is better, but not really because he is any good, but because of how weak Wied is. Thekla Carola Weak. Or Wiek. Sorry, just had to. Ludwig Blochberger is the third who has a photo here and also the third credit and he plays the son, who is accused of having commited a horrible crime. But as we find out later on, he only witnessed it. The victim of said crime is played by Mira Bartuschek and well, what can I say about her. She is fairly stunning, but her line delivery, although her part really wasn't big (especially compared to the significance), was pretty bad at times. Jochen Horst is in here too and I will always remember him from "Balko" when he still had much more hair on his head. Solid recognition value he's got, but his character is also too minor to make an impact. Same is true about Thomas Thieme and that disappointed me the most. Honestly, he is good enough to be a lead actor in television films, maybe even too good for that, and what did they do with him here? He plays a cop randomly rushing to the scene and he is not happy with the younger cop going easy on the family because they are such solid people. That's it basically. What a joke and what a waste of Thieme's talent. There are more actors who may seem familiar and most of them are/were also pretty experienced back then, but I will skip mentioning the names. Feel free to check out the cast list for that and you will find that there are actually several people in here who were a part of "Das Leben der Anderen" (perhaps best german film of all time), which surprised me a bit.
Alright, the story in the center of it all is about a young woman who falls down from high up and has sever injuries. When the character played by Blochberger disappears immediately afterwards, suspicion rises that he could have something to do with that, especially because there was a fight sequence before that between him and another suitor of the girl and he was really mad at the girl too. However, things are not the way they seem. Clearly the writers and filmmakers here want you to think tat it was the doctor who did it, the one who helped the girl with her bleeding nose and led her outside immediately afterwards. There are so many indicators for that. Also how the girl seems to be getting better, but minutes later, she is really bad again, so one could think that he had something to do with that, gave her something ithout anybody recognizing. Also his reactions when being asked if she ill get healthy seemed in a way here you could think he said something like "hopefully" only for the sake of the situation and not because he wanted it because she would reveal who did this to her. I fell for it as well, I must admit. The reason, however, is not that I got actually tricked, but that the film is otherwise weak enough (just like the vast majority of other German afternoon television films) that you could think all they want is the audience to feel smart to guess this 100% obvious twist. It would have been the case in many other Regina Ziegler productions. Here it is not. Actually, I hoped it would not be. But was I relieved? No. Because the actual explanation with the boy's father having a lengthy affair with the young woman is even bigger nonsense. Completely unauthentic, did not feel one bit realistic, also how the old man ends it there before the accident happens. And this is what I mean with the title of my review. Yes, they want for the unexpected, but it was just a different kind of garbage overall. An even worse kind. I already mentioned the production company and if you need one final bit of proof why this film really sucked, then this is it. Regina Ziegler is at least as often garbage as Thekla Carola Wied movie and if both of them are involved, there is no other option. Obviously minus and minus does not equal plus here, but minus in the tenth degree. Also a bit unusual in fact that there was zero comedy. You don't see that too often in these Ziegler/afternoon films. But yeah, this is a crime movie ith thriller and drama elements. A pretty weak one though. No hesitation for me here in giving this one a thumbs-down and I suggest you skip the watch. Actually, I highly recommend it to keep your distance here. Also how they gave us the explanation after 60 minutes and the last almost half hour was apparently intended to turn this into a strong character study for Wied's character and how she deals with all this betrayal. Shame Wied (as well as the writer) do not possess 10% of the talent needed to make it work. One thing that is not unusual is that it is the men who are to blame for everything. Be it the son who cannot deal with a woman not wanting him, be it the doctor who is onl only there to serve as a potential killed, be it the police officer who is not good at his job or be it the old husband finally who is the reason why she died, who has been unfaithful to his wife and actually deserves to die in the end even. This is the message they are sending. How dare he not be Wied's character's faithful slave. Wied's character, however, is still personified kindness as she defends her son, but also does not tell about her husband when she knows hat happened. Scum he is the husband! And even with this twist, there is still a bit of a happy ending because the boy's name is cleared and he is having a better relationship with his mother again. So yeah, the movie at its very core sucked a lot, but it is also the smaller moments that lack attention to detail and feel fake for the sake of it. The best example is how the husband has this earlier heart attack as if it is nothing with howw quickly he is fine again as well. Or how the victim has no visible traces of blood on her nose despite how heavily she was bleeding minutes earlier, but then in the report the blood there is mentioned again. Which is not there. So yeah, you can see that there was not a lot of wit and talent involved when this film was made. Watch something else instead.
Alright, the story in the center of it all is about a young woman who falls down from high up and has sever injuries. When the character played by Blochberger disappears immediately afterwards, suspicion rises that he could have something to do with that, especially because there was a fight sequence before that between him and another suitor of the girl and he was really mad at the girl too. However, things are not the way they seem. Clearly the writers and filmmakers here want you to think tat it was the doctor who did it, the one who helped the girl with her bleeding nose and led her outside immediately afterwards. There are so many indicators for that. Also how the girl seems to be getting better, but minutes later, she is really bad again, so one could think that he had something to do with that, gave her something ithout anybody recognizing. Also his reactions when being asked if she ill get healthy seemed in a way here you could think he said something like "hopefully" only for the sake of the situation and not because he wanted it because she would reveal who did this to her. I fell for it as well, I must admit. The reason, however, is not that I got actually tricked, but that the film is otherwise weak enough (just like the vast majority of other German afternoon television films) that you could think all they want is the audience to feel smart to guess this 100% obvious twist. It would have been the case in many other Regina Ziegler productions. Here it is not. Actually, I hoped it would not be. But was I relieved? No. Because the actual explanation with the boy's father having a lengthy affair with the young woman is even bigger nonsense. Completely unauthentic, did not feel one bit realistic, also how the old man ends it there before the accident happens. And this is what I mean with the title of my review. Yes, they want for the unexpected, but it was just a different kind of garbage overall. An even worse kind. I already mentioned the production company and if you need one final bit of proof why this film really sucked, then this is it. Regina Ziegler is at least as often garbage as Thekla Carola Wied movie and if both of them are involved, there is no other option. Obviously minus and minus does not equal plus here, but minus in the tenth degree. Also a bit unusual in fact that there was zero comedy. You don't see that too often in these Ziegler/afternoon films. But yeah, this is a crime movie ith thriller and drama elements. A pretty weak one though. No hesitation for me here in giving this one a thumbs-down and I suggest you skip the watch. Actually, I highly recommend it to keep your distance here. Also how they gave us the explanation after 60 minutes and the last almost half hour was apparently intended to turn this into a strong character study for Wied's character and how she deals with all this betrayal. Shame Wied (as well as the writer) do not possess 10% of the talent needed to make it work. One thing that is not unusual is that it is the men who are to blame for everything. Be it the son who cannot deal with a woman not wanting him, be it the doctor who is onl only there to serve as a potential killed, be it the police officer who is not good at his job or be it the old husband finally who is the reason why she died, who has been unfaithful to his wife and actually deserves to die in the end even. This is the message they are sending. How dare he not be Wied's character's faithful slave. Wied's character, however, is still personified kindness as she defends her son, but also does not tell about her husband when she knows hat happened. Scum he is the husband! And even with this twist, there is still a bit of a happy ending because the boy's name is cleared and he is having a better relationship with his mother again. So yeah, the movie at its very core sucked a lot, but it is also the smaller moments that lack attention to detail and feel fake for the sake of it. The best example is how the husband has this earlier heart attack as if it is nothing with howw quickly he is fine again as well. Or how the victim has no visible traces of blood on her nose despite how heavily she was bleeding minutes earlier, but then in the report the blood there is mentioned again. Which is not there. So yeah, you can see that there was not a lot of wit and talent involved when this film was made. Watch something else instead.
