And I have seen a lot. This should give you an accurate description already what I think about this film. I want to make clear right away that this movie is a gigantic mess and you should absolutely not watch it. Now, first things first: "24 Milchkühe und kein Mann" or "Ellis neuer Mann" or "There's Something about Raymond" is a German television movie from 2013, so you can say that these almost 90 minutes here are not new anymore, but also not as old as some other movies that are shown on German television here and there. The director is Thomas Kronthaler and while his body of work is not exactly something to be proud of either, it is by no means as bad as the boy of work by writer Thomas Kirdorf, not only because his most recent filmmaking efforts include a bunch of "Ein Sommer in..." / "A Summer in..." movies and after that follows a geographic location and these films are complete garbage with unrealistic characters, stupid romance and not even beautiful landscapes. So don't watch those either. Now back to this one here. reading the name Kirdorf, reading the cringeorthy (German) title and reading the name of lead actress Jutta Speidel makes 100% clear that this movie can only result in a mess. You can say that Speidel is basically a slightly older equivalent to the likes of Simone Thomalla and Dr. Furt(/z)wängler and Christine Neubauer (and Veronica Ferres) and a slightly younger equivalent to Marianna Sägebrecht. In other words, she has no talent and you can rest assured that whatever film she has the lead in, it will be really embarrassing. And no matter how hard they try to make her look younger by putting her into clothes that show a great deal of skin or have her join modern sports groups, she still looks her age (which was almost 60 back then) or looks even older. And the approximately 10 years of age difference to her male co-lead her also feel like 15 at least or maybe 20 even because the man looks younger than he actually is unlike Speidel. But it is nothing too uncommon. The actresses I just mentioned (those who suck) frequently have younger love interests in their movies so that we don't forget how attractive they are and what young spirits are inside them. Well, I should not say "we", but the easily entertained wwho just believe everything shown to them. By the way, the male protagonist Christofer von Beau, who plays Raymond, does not even look too Black on the photo here on imdb.
So yeah, there you already have the film's key aspect. This is the story of an elderly woman falling for a younger man, but the fact that he is Black causes some mayhem in her village. Oh well, this is of course a plot that the politically correct politicians and mainstream media will love because it teaches us something about tolerance and equality etc. blah blah. I disagree. Sadly those I just mentioned see the subject and that is enough for them to say this is an important movie with a good message. They totally forget that in order to make a good movie you need a high-quality script, strong performances and good production values in general. And none of that is here. Conclusion: This is not a good movie. This is an abysmal movie. There are just so many individual scenes and moment when we see howw this film sucks. It already starts really messy with the moment we see the dead husband on the tractor. Oh my, I knew from that moment on it would all be downhill and that is pretty telling as for most other movies, this moment would already have been the most negative moment from the entire film quality-wise. But here it gets much much worse. I will give you some examples. Just take the final scene with the doorbell and how they open the door. Good god, luckily this was when the closing credits rolled in. Orf all the pseudo drama at the end. It was of course predicted because these films always have a turn of events near the end when we are supposed think that everything is lost, but then all out of nowhere it becomes a happy ending again. Now the negative moments here include the female protagonist reading a book (nice way to respect your partner's privacy) that belongs to her man ad the very same moment (how realistic) he enters the house and sees it. And she thinks that he just played with her. Because he was dating other women? Oh wow how absurd when you meed through a dating agency. But if you thought that was bad already, wait till you see the scenes with the main antagonist about to commit suicide and our "hero" saves him and even ens up in a fistfight with him because if the antagonist already has to be rescued, then he would not want it to happen from a Black man. Oh my the cringe. I can literally see housewives fall unconscious from all the tension and drama in this scene. The weather played along as well. Okay, so now you know the ending is a mess for several reasons. please don't think that all before that was only remotely good because it as just as bad and it is a bit difficult to remember exactly what happened there becaue I would love to ban this movie from my memory right away. Oh wait, there is more at the end. this bizarre contest that of course our "beloved" couple wins. Quelle surprise. They really went all in there with making things as horrible as possible. Now, an earlier scene involves the introduction to said contest to with the main antagonist inventing rules and of course Speidel's character knows he made it up (hey she is a smart woman of course right!) and the explanation from him then haha. But what was even much worse there was the ay how she paid the money to participate in this contest with her man and how it stuck right into the soil. Holy moly. They really went there.
There are many other bad scenes and moments (also involving the pseudo important soundtrack that really hit rock-bottom several times when they played some music in the background that in terms of style was clearly linked to the male protagonist's African roots, oh boy!) in this film we have here, but i will not mention them all because I would certainly run into the character limit then. Just one more: It was really cringeworthy how she kept mentioning Africa all the time, even at the first date already. This date was a mess anyay the way it was written and of course at the end they made sure that we understand that the guy really wants Speidel's character, but she is playing hard to get and says bye with a handshake and not with the hug he was going for. So boo on the evil guy for going out with other women, but really how could they have been worse than Speidel's character. really inexplicable honestly. So of course she was complaining not much later how he did not call her immediately. By the way what was up with her dating so quickly after the death of her husband. I knew she needed someone to help her with the farm, but still. Surely also a good idea to put hundreds, if not thousands, of bucks into this company instead of using it for the farm. Oh well. Another thing that needs to be mentioned are those cringeworthy quotes that Speidel's character keep giving us. Felt so fake because of how they were written, but also because of the actress' absence of talent. But hey her Italian coffee significant other in real life (were they still a couple then) was also much younger than herself, so of course she can pull off these characters right? Guess again. Finally, I want to say that the film is also visually a disappointment. Honestly, it could have been really nice with the landscapes, animals and mountains there, but none of this was depicted in a convincing way. I can't say I am surprised with how they messed up everywhere else. The only thing they did was shove these cow moments into our faces at the very beginning and that was it. So uninspired. I guess now you know why I thought this film was an abysmal watch that is not even good enough to be shown around noon. It should never be shown again in fact, for the sake of audiences worldwide, especially here in Germany. We don't deserve that. Highly not recommended.
So yeah, there you already have the film's key aspect. This is the story of an elderly woman falling for a younger man, but the fact that he is Black causes some mayhem in her village. Oh well, this is of course a plot that the politically correct politicians and mainstream media will love because it teaches us something about tolerance and equality etc. blah blah. I disagree. Sadly those I just mentioned see the subject and that is enough for them to say this is an important movie with a good message. They totally forget that in order to make a good movie you need a high-quality script, strong performances and good production values in general. And none of that is here. Conclusion: This is not a good movie. This is an abysmal movie. There are just so many individual scenes and moment when we see howw this film sucks. It already starts really messy with the moment we see the dead husband on the tractor. Oh my, I knew from that moment on it would all be downhill and that is pretty telling as for most other movies, this moment would already have been the most negative moment from the entire film quality-wise. But here it gets much much worse. I will give you some examples. Just take the final scene with the doorbell and how they open the door. Good god, luckily this was when the closing credits rolled in. Orf all the pseudo drama at the end. It was of course predicted because these films always have a turn of events near the end when we are supposed think that everything is lost, but then all out of nowhere it becomes a happy ending again. Now the negative moments here include the female protagonist reading a book (nice way to respect your partner's privacy) that belongs to her man ad the very same moment (how realistic) he enters the house and sees it. And she thinks that he just played with her. Because he was dating other women? Oh wow how absurd when you meed through a dating agency. But if you thought that was bad already, wait till you see the scenes with the main antagonist about to commit suicide and our "hero" saves him and even ens up in a fistfight with him because if the antagonist already has to be rescued, then he would not want it to happen from a Black man. Oh my the cringe. I can literally see housewives fall unconscious from all the tension and drama in this scene. The weather played along as well. Okay, so now you know the ending is a mess for several reasons. please don't think that all before that was only remotely good because it as just as bad and it is a bit difficult to remember exactly what happened there becaue I would love to ban this movie from my memory right away. Oh wait, there is more at the end. this bizarre contest that of course our "beloved" couple wins. Quelle surprise. They really went all in there with making things as horrible as possible. Now, an earlier scene involves the introduction to said contest to with the main antagonist inventing rules and of course Speidel's character knows he made it up (hey she is a smart woman of course right!) and the explanation from him then haha. But what was even much worse there was the ay how she paid the money to participate in this contest with her man and how it stuck right into the soil. Holy moly. They really went there.
There are many other bad scenes and moments (also involving the pseudo important soundtrack that really hit rock-bottom several times when they played some music in the background that in terms of style was clearly linked to the male protagonist's African roots, oh boy!) in this film we have here, but i will not mention them all because I would certainly run into the character limit then. Just one more: It was really cringeworthy how she kept mentioning Africa all the time, even at the first date already. This date was a mess anyay the way it was written and of course at the end they made sure that we understand that the guy really wants Speidel's character, but she is playing hard to get and says bye with a handshake and not with the hug he was going for. So boo on the evil guy for going out with other women, but really how could they have been worse than Speidel's character. really inexplicable honestly. So of course she was complaining not much later how he did not call her immediately. By the way what was up with her dating so quickly after the death of her husband. I knew she needed someone to help her with the farm, but still. Surely also a good idea to put hundreds, if not thousands, of bucks into this company instead of using it for the farm. Oh well. Another thing that needs to be mentioned are those cringeworthy quotes that Speidel's character keep giving us. Felt so fake because of how they were written, but also because of the actress' absence of talent. But hey her Italian coffee significant other in real life (were they still a couple then) was also much younger than herself, so of course she can pull off these characters right? Guess again. Finally, I want to say that the film is also visually a disappointment. Honestly, it could have been really nice with the landscapes, animals and mountains there, but none of this was depicted in a convincing way. I can't say I am surprised with how they messed up everywhere else. The only thing they did was shove these cow moments into our faces at the very beginning and that was it. So uninspired. I guess now you know why I thought this film was an abysmal watch that is not even good enough to be shown around noon. It should never be shown again in fact, for the sake of audiences worldwide, especially here in Germany. We don't deserve that. Highly not recommended.
