Strong and Moving!

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

"FC Venus" is a German 95-minute movie from 2006, so it had its 10th anniversary last year. It's probably the most known work by director Ute Wieland, fittingly a female director in accordance with the subject. The writer is Jan Berger, but I must say I am shocked by how bad the screenplay here is. I loved Berger's work on "The Physician", so I really did not expect that. But maybe Berger is not the one to blame as this film is the German-language version of a Finnish movie from one year earlier that deals with the exact same story and subject. I have not seen that one, but it's difficult for me to imagine it being as bad or even worse than this one here. Now about the cast: You will recognize many familiar faces if you are interested in German films. Nora Tschirner and Christian Ulmen are the leads and they recently reunited for the German television series "Tatort". Nopw I would not really blame them for how much of a failure this film turned out as it's at least 90% due to the script. The supporting cast includes the likes of Heinz Hoenig, Florian Lukas and maybe 1 or 2 others you came across once or twice.Finally, the story: This is about a couple who move places and the woman realizes the only reason for it is that the man can play again with his old football buddies. She is pretty furious and the consequence is that she and her man have a bet, namely that she can beat the guy's soccer team with a team that consists of the men's girlfriends and wives. Now lets be serious here: Women biologically already have a disadvantage and that is why no national team of women could beat a 3rd league soccer team consisting of men. But yeah, here the women, all of them untrained with one or two exceptions of course manage the impossible, against a team of men who play on a regular basis. So yeah, this is where the film sacrifices all realism. I like Nora Tschirner, but her penalty scene is also really cringeworthy. Okay, can we see this film as comedy then? No we cannot. If we could, then I'd have given it a 4/10 perhaps. However, the movie takes itself incredibly seriously all the time. And it also tries to be way too much. Feminism. Emancipation. Relationship struggles. Homosexuality. Job problems. And there is also a sub-plot about a very ill character that was supposed to add more emotion even. They tried to make it so much and maybe even as a consequence it turned into so little. Shocking stuff really. The dialogues rang pretty false on so so many occasions. For me it is so difficult to find anything positive about the film. Maybe it is that the final shot was pretty solid, even it has a touch of forced happy ending going with it. So yeah, I recommend highly to stay far far away from this film and this comes from somebody who likes Ulmen(even if only for his comedy), and likes Nora Tschirner even more.

When I read the summary of FC Venus, I thought to myself, hey, why not give it a chance. Perhaps I'm in for a surprise. After all, the premise sounded way too predictable to not include an ironic twist that would make the movie at least half enjoyable. To my disappointment, it merely followed through with its paint-by-the-numbers storyline.If you're looking for any kind of message, how shallow it might be, look somewhere else. Not even a contrived "women can be powerful" message can be found here since too many circumstantial things happen before and during the final game (I have to be a little vague because I don't want to spoil anything for those inclined to see this movie).It was obvious how the movie tried to go for the typical Hollywood drama without being cheesy and having the feel of being German, i.e. a pretense sense of realism. The skills of the soccer players were held to such a low level that it almost looked ridiculous. I'm a better soccer player than those guys who are supposed to having played soccer for years. However, the film failed even more miserably when the supposed suspense scenes kicked in. Like a train wreck, it was hard to keep your eyes off it since they serve as a text book example for bad filmmaking.If you are young, female, and into soccer, you might enjoy this film. If any of these traits don't apply to you, by all means, stay away.

This movie is so rich in brilliant ideas and gags, it makes you forget the few weaknesses in the story and the characters.These minor weak spots are the only reason why the leading actors cannot excel in their usual way. Esp. the role of Christian Ulmen is just to 'normal' for him to show his true talent. Nora Tschirner is well casted, but she also didn't have the opportunity to show what she's capable of (btw, she is very beautiful and charming, hope to see more of her in the future!).Fortunately, an old football saying applies to this movie: the team is the star. Some of the supporting actors do a very good job in portraying the different types of soccer fanatics resp. their wives.If you're into football/soccer yourself or you know somebody who is, you're destined to recognise yourself/this person somewhere in the movie.Definitely worth seeing!