Undescribable Perfection

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A different way of telling a story

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

"Teufelskicker" or "Devil's Kickers" is a German 110-minute film from 2010, so it's neither a relatively new or old film. The director and also one of the writers is Granz Henman and if you take a look at his other works, you basically know what to expect here quality-wise: mediocrity. But honestly that's not what you get. You get a really really bad film instead to be honest. Lead actor Henry Horn has not been in another film apparently before or after this one, but most recently appeared in one of these dreadful daily real-life soaps and that's not a surprise at all looking at his performance here. Amft, Fürmann, Rohde and M'Barek may be somewhat big names from Herman cinema, but they also appeared in many garbage films to be honest and still this one here is a contender for their worst. Their line delivery is as bad as the way the characters were written. And now we are already talking about the script. It is a complete joke to be honest. One example would be the football moves by the kids that are stuff that the love child from Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't do. And after 3 jumps and in-air salti they still kick the ball in a way where it results into a goal against the powerless goalie from the enemy team. Another problem is that they want us to see the kids as likable, but it is not working out entirely. They jump through the streets destroying harmless passengers' grocery bags. What the hell? Oh yeah they sure look really cool doing so. Now you could say that the film should be seen as a pointless guilty pleasure, but you would be wrong then as the contents include so much: (possible) divorce, discrimination, emancipation, age-related illness, father-son relationship etc. This is not a film that does not want to be taken seriously. It is a film that wants to be taken seriously, while come short in pretty much every single regard of the story. The moment when the film really hit rock-bottom was when they included all kinds of cooking references in cabin talk towards the end. Oh yeah "3 eggs instead of 4" means of course that they want to play with 3 defenders out of 4. But don't worry that one kid character is gonna translate the rubbish Amft's character is talking. It is difficult to admit, but this film is really even lower on the scale than the Wilde Kerle films, at least worse than the better ones and if you have seen them you know that these really really suck as well. Do yourself and your kid a favor if you don't want to ruin the way he/she perceives movies during the future and never let them know this film here even exists. Unless you, for whatever reason, see kids running around in the streets and passing balls to one another for several minutes as quality story-telling. Then it may even be too late for you.

If this was an English language film it would probably get a big audience in the UK, and not just from football affectionados. I still think it would go down well with older children (despite sub-titles; the film is in German) because the action sequences are excellent and the events that take place are not difficult to understand. The plot is simple, simply done and the better for it. Cliché, perhaps but aren't all good, if not great, films basically simple? The main character, Moritz, is played by Henry Horn from the German band Apollo 3: The two other members of the band have secondary roles as players in the team. Moritz is the only child of an affluent family. I have no issue with this as to me it only serves to contrast the emotional pain he endures when early in the film his parents split up and he goes to live with his mother and maternal grandfather in another town. None of the characters appear poor in the monetary sense, but they are all suffering in other ways. Misfits forming a team, yes it's been done before and no doubt will be done again.How it all pans out is wonderfully simple, no computer written plot twists but clever none the less. The film delivers. Sometimes it's good to have egg and frites for supper.