Herman the German (2015) User Reviews

German Handywork

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 6 February 2016]

If you like short movies, this might be right up your alley. While there is a food chain called "Herman ze German" and this starts with a guy eating a sausage, this is a completely different beast. It's about a guy who's a bomb specialist. The already mentioned Herman (though I haven't met a German called just Herman. Hermann as in Hesse on the other hand: yes, there are a few).

There is even a trailer for this, which is not too revealing, so you can have a look and see if the humor is something you dig/like. The short starts off explaining or bringing the character to life and the voice over does a lot of good work, even if normally you don't like the use of this "tool" in a movie. But it does have a couple of twists and turns, that are pretty funny too. Again: it all stands and falls with your taste and the question if you think it's funny or not

I like Wöhler, but cannot share the praise

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 5 December 2016]

"Herman the German" is a 14-minute live action short film from 2015 (last year) and this one was written and directed by Michael Binz. It is probably his most known work to date and also won a decent share of awards at several film festivals. The language is German despite the English title. The main character is played by established German actor Gustav Peter Wöhler, who had his 60th birthday this year, and I kinda like him. I still believe he is one of the better aspects of the film. We also see actress and comedian Anke Engelke playing the possible biggest supporting character, a doctor who is in charge of curing our protagonist, a man who is not able to feel fear anymore and strangely enough the therapy method here is that he is supposed to feel and find out about every existing fear out there, which did not make any sense at all to me. This short film is certainly not a revelation in terms of the script/story, which is probably the weakest component here. Sadly, it is also the most important component, which makes it a complete deal-breaker in the negative sense. I don't recommend the watch. Thumbs-down.