"Mein Nachbar, sein Dackel & ich" (they actually intended to make the title even longer by mentioning another character as if it isn't bad enough already the way it is) is a German television film from 2009, so this one is already over a decade old now. The director is highly prolific slamm screen filmmaker Dirk Regel from Germany and the screenplay is by spouses Eva and Horst Kummeth. The latter is still active, but according to imdb Eva has not worked on new screenplays in a decade now, which makes this one here one of her final projects, and honestly this is a good thing if we take a look at the quality here and also how her career-defining works include Inga Lindström adaptations as well as "In aller Freundschaft", so basically stuff you can consider the pond scum of German television and let me tell you it is a very deep pond. The cast includes a handful of fairly experienced actors, but none of them are really big names. The two most known performers are cast for the centrall characters, which is not a big surprise. The first would be Günther Maria Halmer, who played in "Sophie's Choice" and "Gandhi" in the early 1980s, which is definitely something, but allso makes it a bit sad that now he has to appear in garbage movies like this one here. I cannot say too much negative about him really, if anything at all. He is definitely one of the not too many components of this movie that do not suck completely. Here and there he even managed to make the pretty abysmal screenplay look tolerable and these more cringeworthy moments like the screaming scene could have become a lot worse with a less gifted actor in charge there. However, I cannot say the same about female lead actress Ann-Kathrin Kramer. This is no surprise either because her career is basically defined by low-quality films, in which she plays the central character most of the time. She may have decent recognition value, but what she definitely has not are range and versatility. She was so bad honestly and for her it as the other way around, namely that she managed to make the already pretty bad script look even worse because of her overacting and inability to hit any right notes during her performance. One perfect example for this is the scene when the male protagonist and Kramer's character's daughter are playing a weird board game. I mean she had zero material in this scene and it as unreal how she managed to mess up like that there. There are many other examples. Just take the scene when the writers wanted to present her as a self-confident and talented woman when it comes to her profession as a midwife. When we see her intervene as she is not happy with the course and the woman in charge there, it was maybe the worst moment of the film. Kramer goes full ham and there is no excuse for that. Just like there is no excuse for people actually believing what the filmmakers wanted us to believe.
The film really starts on a low note already, namely when we find out about the protagonists' names. Lieblich and Schroff yeah right. I really hope that everybody ees through this charade and actually does not perceive the female protagonist as anything remotely lovely. But even if it was true (and I am sure the simple and easily influenced out there think it is true), then this would have been a ridiculous coincidence honestly that makes it difficult to take this film seriously whatsoever from any perspective. Oh by the way, the daughter is played by Alina Freund, who managed her own career playing the little witch Lilli, but it seems her acting career is almost over now too. Okay more cringeworthy moments include basically the side action as well, namely the romantic relationship between the female protagonist's best friend and the male proptagonist's brother. That was not a part of the film for a really long time, but they just rushed this in near the end for the sake of it and to fill the almost 2 hours I suppose and yep it made this film even worse. Congrats. When I felt that at least they did not take the route of a romantic relationship beteen the two main characters, even there they proved me wrong. I mean who cares about 25 years age difference when it is true love, right? Honestly, even with this difference in age, Halmer's character does not deserve someone like Kramer('s). Oh and let's not forget about the dog plot. You can read it in the title that one character is dog lover, a dachshund lover to be more precise. But apparently not enough of a dog lover to see how his dog is about to give birth to a handful of puppies. So yeah, maybe they thought that people can foegt about all the stupidity this film offers and that it makes no sense if we get in puppies. Some will I'm sure. I cannot do them this favor. Anyway, luckily Kramer's character is around when the birth happens and of course she knows immediately what to do because I mean she is a midwife right? No biggie to do the same for a dog. Okay I think I will leave it at that, even if I probably have not mentioned 10% (probably not even 5%) of the scenes and moments when this film really sucked. Just one more quick example would be how the two main characters constantly run into each other through coincidence, which they wanted us to believe was fate? Ridiculous. It was such a bad watch and it should not even be shown in the morning or afternoon on television. Best for everybody is if nobody ever took it out of the drawer again. I give this one a massive thumbs-down. Big surprise. Highly not recommended.
The film really starts on a low note already, namely when we find out about the protagonists' names. Lieblich and Schroff yeah right. I really hope that everybody ees through this charade and actually does not perceive the female protagonist as anything remotely lovely. But even if it was true (and I am sure the simple and easily influenced out there think it is true), then this would have been a ridiculous coincidence honestly that makes it difficult to take this film seriously whatsoever from any perspective. Oh by the way, the daughter is played by Alina Freund, who managed her own career playing the little witch Lilli, but it seems her acting career is almost over now too. Okay more cringeworthy moments include basically the side action as well, namely the romantic relationship between the female protagonist's best friend and the male proptagonist's brother. That was not a part of the film for a really long time, but they just rushed this in near the end for the sake of it and to fill the almost 2 hours I suppose and yep it made this film even worse. Congrats. When I felt that at least they did not take the route of a romantic relationship beteen the two main characters, even there they proved me wrong. I mean who cares about 25 years age difference when it is true love, right? Honestly, even with this difference in age, Halmer's character does not deserve someone like Kramer('s). Oh and let's not forget about the dog plot. You can read it in the title that one character is dog lover, a dachshund lover to be more precise. But apparently not enough of a dog lover to see how his dog is about to give birth to a handful of puppies. So yeah, maybe they thought that people can foegt about all the stupidity this film offers and that it makes no sense if we get in puppies. Some will I'm sure. I cannot do them this favor. Anyway, luckily Kramer's character is around when the birth happens and of course she knows immediately what to do because I mean she is a midwife right? No biggie to do the same for a dog. Okay I think I will leave it at that, even if I probably have not mentioned 10% (probably not even 5%) of the scenes and moments when this film really sucked. Just one more quick example would be how the two main characters constantly run into each other through coincidence, which they wanted us to believe was fate? Ridiculous. It was such a bad watch and it should not even be shown in the morning or afternoon on television. Best for everybody is if nobody ever took it out of the drawer again. I give this one a massive thumbs-down. Big surprise. Highly not recommended.
