"Männersache" is a German 90-minute movie from 7 years ago written and directed by lead actor Mario Barth himself. His co-director is Gernot Roll, who proves once again that he may be a great cinematographer, but not a good director. And with the script, Barth got help from Dieter Tappert, his co-lead actor, who is more known as Paul Panzer. The cast includes a couple more famous names: Jürgen Vogel, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Anja Kling, Sido, Leander Haußmann and Michael Gwisdek play minor characters. Also in here is Thomas Thieme, a personal favorite of mine, but sadly not even he cannot keep this from being a complete mess. It fails completely in terms of both comedy and drama. This is not a funny film on any occasion. Barth gives the humor its usual approach and if you like him, you will probably like this film too. I personally think he is loud and annoying, but rarely entertaining in both his stand-up and his performance here. Also speaking about his stand-up, it is always about women-men difficulties and it has gotten repetitive beyond belief by now.
So yeah, I guess it is not unexpected that he made a film now too. Many equally untalented, less successful German comedians have done so and it always turned out disappointing. Same applies to this film. Even worse than the comedy is probably the drama. Cringeworthy acting and unauthentically unrealistic plot developments made this one painful to watch at times. It is ridiculous how serious the film takes itself during these dramatic parts. I also am not not sure what is worse, the flashback scenes or the fact that Barth (and Panzer to a lesser extent) play several other characters too in costumes obviously. Overall, a very weak film and I do not recommend seeing it. The IMDb rating is accurate and I am not sure what exactly the other reviewer here saw in this one. Stay away, my **/***** is still pretty generous.
So yeah, I guess it is not unexpected that he made a film now too. Many equally untalented, less successful German comedians have done so and it always turned out disappointing. Same applies to this film. Even worse than the comedy is probably the drama. Cringeworthy acting and unauthentically unrealistic plot developments made this one painful to watch at times. It is ridiculous how serious the film takes itself during these dramatic parts. I also am not not sure what is worse, the flashback scenes or the fact that Barth (and Panzer to a lesser extent) play several other characters too in costumes obviously. Overall, a very weak film and I do not recommend seeing it. The IMDb rating is accurate and I am not sure what exactly the other reviewer here saw in this one. Stay away, my **/***** is still pretty generous.