It's a nice little movie. Nothing fantastic, it's predictable and doesn't go too deep, but it's touching. It makes you go awwww and puts a smile on your face. If you just want to relax for a bit on a rainy day, it's perfect.
2 Reviews
The Crap Test: Highest result possible
Horst_In_Translation5 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
"Papa auf Probe" or "The Dad Test" is a German television film from 2013, so this one is 7 years old now and like most other small screen releases here in my country it runs for slightly under 1.5 hours. There is not too much to say about director Witte and writer Heckmann. Their bodies of work speak for themselves. "Inga Lindström" and "Alarm für Cobra 11" are just two examples, but hey at least they are living proof that you can have a career in the fereman television industry for years, no decades, even if apparently you have not a single ounce of talent in your body. Not sure if that is a good or a bad thing though. Admittedly, the same is true for almost the entire cast here. No versatility on them either. The lead actor is Pasquale Aleardi whose entire career (that basically consists of films like this one here) relies on his charisma and dark looks. Him being born in Switzerland to (probably) Italian ancestors is enough for him to get cast again and again. A sad state of affairs for sure. He has no range. Same is true for Tanja Wedhorn, whose career-defining work so far is the cringeworthy "Bianca - Wege zum Glück". Enough said. At least they saw how bad she is and made this film at its core about the male protagonist, who probably also has the bigger name. It is a bit of an exception because most of the time these films have a female character in the center, simply because they are mostly for female audiences. But thanks to Aleardi's looks, they could take the risk here. I won't even deny he is pretty handsome, even as a straight male, but that is really all he is. Okay, the tragedy goes beyond the two main actors. The two child actors are really bad too. The girl is worse then the boy I'd say and she puts it all (or nothing) on display when she goes full ham in that scene at the spa, especially when she speaks English to mock the antagonist. Definitely a contender for worst scene of the film. In almost any other film, this scene would be the easy choice, but here it is one of many. By the way, also very realistic that this specific other female character shows up exactly this very moment. Quite the coincidence. But I do not yet want to speak about all the scenes and moments that sucked. I will get to that later. As for the boy: I saw he recently played in Fatih Akin's new film, so hopefully he improved a bit since 2013. Marie Gruber of course is always a guarantee for giving a bad portrayal and almost always being in a film that sucks from minute one because actually talented and ambitious filmmakers would not cast her even. And these were just the ones who have more scenes. Or material in more scenes. There are also many characters, who justg appear briefly or have virtually no material at all. The best example is the waiter at the hotel and what he says to the couple there. Oh boy, I have never seen more stale line delivery. Maybe he really was a waiter and not an actor? I would not be surprised.
Another one that deserves to be mentioned is the female protagonist's best friend. She is reduced to drooling over Aleardi's character in the most cringeworthy manner you could imagine and in one scene when he comes to see the protagonist, she is supposed to tell him that her friend is not there and what she does and how she basically talks to the audience right afterward is a moment every filmmaker should see to make sure they never have this in their movies. For the sake of humanity. By the way, she looked a bit like Amy Winehouse, but obviously she did not have 1% of Amy's talent, when it comes to singing and probably even acting and yes I know Winehouse wasn't an actress. Okay, now I will give you more speficif moments and scenes that sucked. Just take the new employer who wants the super successful highly decorated former employee back of course and the reference about the table and what he did on there is just a disgrace. I feel kinda bad for the actress that obviously she was so desperate that she had to accept a role like this that was not only written very poorly, but also gives women a really bad name and I am the last person who makes a statement like this. It starts as a mess early on already when we find out what the male protagonist did on the boss' table. And what he did with all the assistants. The cringe is real. There was also one very short, but specific moment early on that made it obvious that there was no salvation for this movie, namely when the two central characters during their first meeting talk about the names given to weather phenomenons. No comment. I really wonder if wwriters have lived under a rock for decades if they come up with stuff like that. I am definitely not the most social person under the sun, but even I know that people do not talk like this. Not one bit. Disgusting. Okay what else. Oh yeah the cringeworthy ways how we are led to believe he is going to be a good dad. Be it when he rushes to the football place to protect the boy or when the girl struggles with romance and how he talks to her in general. As for the scene with the boy, the other boy's father was played by Kida Khodr Ramadan and ecen if he was just one second on the screen, he is in it, even without a credit. He should be glad he is not credited because this would definitely be the worst movie in his otherwise decent body of work. Oh yeah, and let's not forget about the pseudo drama about the boy running away. I laughed so hard at this scene. "xy ran away" Mother holds a letter into the camera. "I ran away". Haha I still have to smile, this was so embarrassing. What is probably the worst about this film is that it takes itself 100% seriously from beginning to end. How dare they with this garbage? The pseudo dramatic soundtrack is really difficult to stomach. Oh yeah, at the end, there is a jump ahead in time. One year to be precise and what do we find out. Yep, the two are parents now, which means that after about 2 months of being a couple, he impregnated her. A bit fast, don't you think? Oh well, I am sure the simple viewers in the audience will appreciate this too, just like they like everything about this one probably. The rating here on imdb is a joke. No clue how this can be over 5.0. If I gave ratings below 2 stars out of 10 (because I always rate out of 5 only and full numbers), then this would easily be a 1 out of 10. It's not just the poor (gently-speaking) writing and acting here. It is also technically a mess. The best example is when we have Gruber's character say something like "You've changed" and the exact same second, it moves out to the next scene. Top-notch editing we got here. All in all, one of the most abysmal films I have seen in a while. And I have seen a lot. The entire transformation for Aleardi's character is so unrealistic and nonsense and I was honestly cheering for the other lady at the spa because of how dumb and shallow the two females there were. Highly, highly not recommended. It is even worse than the title implies. Oh and finally one more note: When they buy all this ice cream (and eat it), I thought they were genuinely retarded. By the way, this is followed immediately by the pseudo drama towards the end (after all seems fine and happy), which you always find in these films and here they clearly did not even care. I mean how she all of a sudden disappeared and we hear she cried although in real life she would be totally happy, is a complete joke and another tumor in this screenplay. Yeah sure, she worried about him going away again eventually right. I just can't anymore. You could easily write another 3 paragraphs about all that is wrong with this movie, like how we are supposed to believe that Aleardi's character needed a mom with two children in order to get his life on track. He would never pick that over some young girls 15 years his junior and rightfully so. But hey, his relationship with Gruber's character shows us that he is a good guy inside anyway no? Impossible. This film deserves to be included in the Guinness Book of World Record because I honestly believe it is impossible to stuff more stupidity into 88 minutes. But don't mistake this sentence for a comment that you should watch it. This is not a film that is so bad that it is funny (at least not more than once or twice), there is no guilty pleasure potential here. You will suffer if you still go for it. Don't.
Another one that deserves to be mentioned is the female protagonist's best friend. She is reduced to drooling over Aleardi's character in the most cringeworthy manner you could imagine and in one scene when he comes to see the protagonist, she is supposed to tell him that her friend is not there and what she does and how she basically talks to the audience right afterward is a moment every filmmaker should see to make sure they never have this in their movies. For the sake of humanity. By the way, she looked a bit like Amy Winehouse, but obviously she did not have 1% of Amy's talent, when it comes to singing and probably even acting and yes I know Winehouse wasn't an actress. Okay, now I will give you more speficif moments and scenes that sucked. Just take the new employer who wants the super successful highly decorated former employee back of course and the reference about the table and what he did on there is just a disgrace. I feel kinda bad for the actress that obviously she was so desperate that she had to accept a role like this that was not only written very poorly, but also gives women a really bad name and I am the last person who makes a statement like this. It starts as a mess early on already when we find out what the male protagonist did on the boss' table. And what he did with all the assistants. The cringe is real. There was also one very short, but specific moment early on that made it obvious that there was no salvation for this movie, namely when the two central characters during their first meeting talk about the names given to weather phenomenons. No comment. I really wonder if wwriters have lived under a rock for decades if they come up with stuff like that. I am definitely not the most social person under the sun, but even I know that people do not talk like this. Not one bit. Disgusting. Okay what else. Oh yeah the cringeworthy ways how we are led to believe he is going to be a good dad. Be it when he rushes to the football place to protect the boy or when the girl struggles with romance and how he talks to her in general. As for the scene with the boy, the other boy's father was played by Kida Khodr Ramadan and ecen if he was just one second on the screen, he is in it, even without a credit. He should be glad he is not credited because this would definitely be the worst movie in his otherwise decent body of work. Oh yeah, and let's not forget about the pseudo drama about the boy running away. I laughed so hard at this scene. "xy ran away" Mother holds a letter into the camera. "I ran away". Haha I still have to smile, this was so embarrassing. What is probably the worst about this film is that it takes itself 100% seriously from beginning to end. How dare they with this garbage? The pseudo dramatic soundtrack is really difficult to stomach. Oh yeah, at the end, there is a jump ahead in time. One year to be precise and what do we find out. Yep, the two are parents now, which means that after about 2 months of being a couple, he impregnated her. A bit fast, don't you think? Oh well, I am sure the simple viewers in the audience will appreciate this too, just like they like everything about this one probably. The rating here on imdb is a joke. No clue how this can be over 5.0. If I gave ratings below 2 stars out of 10 (because I always rate out of 5 only and full numbers), then this would easily be a 1 out of 10. It's not just the poor (gently-speaking) writing and acting here. It is also technically a mess. The best example is when we have Gruber's character say something like "You've changed" and the exact same second, it moves out to the next scene. Top-notch editing we got here. All in all, one of the most abysmal films I have seen in a while. And I have seen a lot. The entire transformation for Aleardi's character is so unrealistic and nonsense and I was honestly cheering for the other lady at the spa because of how dumb and shallow the two females there were. Highly, highly not recommended. It is even worse than the title implies. Oh and finally one more note: When they buy all this ice cream (and eat it), I thought they were genuinely retarded. By the way, this is followed immediately by the pseudo drama towards the end (after all seems fine and happy), which you always find in these films and here they clearly did not even care. I mean how she all of a sudden disappeared and we hear she cried although in real life she would be totally happy, is a complete joke and another tumor in this screenplay. Yeah sure, she worried about him going away again eventually right. I just can't anymore. You could easily write another 3 paragraphs about all that is wrong with this movie, like how we are supposed to believe that Aleardi's character needed a mom with two children in order to get his life on track. He would never pick that over some young girls 15 years his junior and rightfully so. But hey, his relationship with Gruber's character shows us that he is a good guy inside anyway no? Impossible. This film deserves to be included in the Guinness Book of World Record because I honestly believe it is impossible to stuff more stupidity into 88 minutes. But don't mistake this sentence for a comment that you should watch it. This is not a film that is so bad that it is funny (at least not more than once or twice), there is no guilty pleasure potential here. You will suffer if you still go for it. Don't.
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