"Hindernisse des Herzens" is a German television film from 2008, so already easily over a decade old and the title of these 1.5 hours can be translated into "Obstacles to the Heart" or, maybe more accurately "hurdles" instead of "obstacles" and then we also have the alliteration. I am not 100% sure if "hurdles" is the right terms though, but with the German term, they certainly had in mind to make a reference to the protagonist's career as an equestrian. First things first: The director is Dietmar Klein and he is still working nowadays, which is not a good thing at all because honestly, I have seen many bodies of work, but rarely have I seen one like his that is really entirely filled with plain terrible projects that do not include the slightest bit of quality. In terms of writer Annette Simon, I am not sure if she is still working,is on a break of three years or so now. Her body is pretty bad too, but still slightly better than the director's I'd say. As for the cast, there are some at least mildly familiar faces such as Plate, Besson and Clown Martinek. Plate is definitely worse than the two guys, but then again she also has the bigger challenge to carry this movie. She is absolutely not up to it. Really weak actresses and there is no justification for her getting cast for lead characters. Also in this film is Feo Aladag, even if her role is really minor. She seemed like a bit of an antagonist, but then, she is more of a buddy eventually. What I dind interesting about her is that she really launched a strong career as a filmmaker herself later and one of her movies is actually one of my favorite films of all time. So yeah, here we still see her as an actress and she is not particularly good at that either, but her work behind the camera is 10 times better than everything and everybody linked to this film we got here. There are two child actors in here too playing Plate's character's kids. The girl is a bit older than the boy, but there is no way she will ever return to acting with how long she has been out of the industry, probably leading a normal life now. She reminded me a bit of a rougher Scralett Johansson here and there, but only in terms of looks. Not a good actress this Rebecca Martin and she made the right decision for her future. The boy is played by Pascal Andres and he tried longer to have a career, but it looks as if it is coming to an end now as well and that is also a good thing. He was pretty bad at times, even if you gotta say in his favor that not even Jacob Tremblay or so could have made this terrible writing work.
In the second paragraph, as usual, I want to mention a few scenes and moments during which it became painfully obvious how bad of a movie this was. I could actually mention Plate's entire performance here as evidence because she is downright bad, never hitting the right notes and almost always over the top in an embarrassing way. There is one minor moment when she accepts a call and finds out something happened to her daughter. That was maybe her weakest moment, but also complete nonsense. She accepts the call, says hello and there is a break of not even one second and then she screams "what" and there is no way the caller could have anything in that short period of time. They really must think the audience is dumb as a rock. Anyway, the entire romance story with Martinek's character is a joke too and not a good one. Already their first meeting and how they look at each other and the background story how he and her man, when they were younger, made this pact because they were both attracted to her. Very smart idea for sure. Or when Martinek's and Plate's character stand somewhere together with the horse and another character makes a statement linked to the horse, but actually you could understand it as well for the two humans in a romantic way. They sure thought this was smart, but it was utter cringe. All the other characters get their fair share too. Be it the boy in the only scene he really has when he talks about his mother and sister having girl talk or later on acting like a man when he talks to Martinek's character. Be it the daughter and her pseudo dramatic running away and bloody accident. Or be it Besson's character and how all of a sudden he seems to have feelings for that other woman and tries to make out with her before she pushes him away telling him to go to his wife. Men are once again depicted as idiots here, especially Besson with that idea. He is a bit of scum with his revenge, but for Plate's character it is all fair and alright because feelings are involved. Martinek's character is deppicted as pushy when he says he ants to leave with her and of course he is also a ladies guy as we find out on one occasion, so of course he must be a stud (no pun intended) when Plate's character is interested in him. And finally, also the horse story: the pseudo dramatic accident with the death early on and finally, the woman, our amazing heroine, is back int he saddle and she defeated all her fears, also partially thanks to Martinek's character. It is just a mess, no matter which perspective you take. The characters are either shallow and bland and uninspired or just irrelevant, sometimes both. I see the making of this film cost 500k, so half a million. Pretty shocking. Your GEZ money at work, folks. Highly not recommended. Don't fall for this travesty.
In the second paragraph, as usual, I want to mention a few scenes and moments during which it became painfully obvious how bad of a movie this was. I could actually mention Plate's entire performance here as evidence because she is downright bad, never hitting the right notes and almost always over the top in an embarrassing way. There is one minor moment when she accepts a call and finds out something happened to her daughter. That was maybe her weakest moment, but also complete nonsense. She accepts the call, says hello and there is a break of not even one second and then she screams "what" and there is no way the caller could have anything in that short period of time. They really must think the audience is dumb as a rock. Anyway, the entire romance story with Martinek's character is a joke too and not a good one. Already their first meeting and how they look at each other and the background story how he and her man, when they were younger, made this pact because they were both attracted to her. Very smart idea for sure. Or when Martinek's and Plate's character stand somewhere together with the horse and another character makes a statement linked to the horse, but actually you could understand it as well for the two humans in a romantic way. They sure thought this was smart, but it was utter cringe. All the other characters get their fair share too. Be it the boy in the only scene he really has when he talks about his mother and sister having girl talk or later on acting like a man when he talks to Martinek's character. Be it the daughter and her pseudo dramatic running away and bloody accident. Or be it Besson's character and how all of a sudden he seems to have feelings for that other woman and tries to make out with her before she pushes him away telling him to go to his wife. Men are once again depicted as idiots here, especially Besson with that idea. He is a bit of scum with his revenge, but for Plate's character it is all fair and alright because feelings are involved. Martinek's character is deppicted as pushy when he says he ants to leave with her and of course he is also a ladies guy as we find out on one occasion, so of course he must be a stud (no pun intended) when Plate's character is interested in him. And finally, also the horse story: the pseudo dramatic accident with the death early on and finally, the woman, our amazing heroine, is back int he saddle and she defeated all her fears, also partially thanks to Martinek's character. It is just a mess, no matter which perspective you take. The characters are either shallow and bland and uninspired or just irrelevant, sometimes both. I see the making of this film cost 500k, so half a million. Pretty shocking. Your GEZ money at work, folks. Highly not recommended. Don't fall for this travesty.