"Macho Man" is a German movie from last year (2015) that runs for 100 minutes approximately and was directed by Christof Wahl, who is mostly known for co-directing a Schweiger/Kavanian comedy in the past. The script comes from a duo of writers, which I find pretty worrying as at least one of the two must have seen what a mess they are creating. Anyway, first things first. The lead actor here is Christian Ulmen and I personally like him as a comedian and liked some of his stuff in the past ("Mein neuer Freund"), but as an actor I am just not convinced sadly by him and this film here does not change that. I somehow feel as if he is kinda playing extremely similar characters in all his films and does not have that much range. His female co-lead is Aylin Tezel, who is a bit of a less talented Sibel Kekilli for me. But still, I do not really blame her for her portrayal here as the character is so badly written that it was virtually impossible to make it work. Supporting performances come from Samuel Finzi, Axel Stein, Peter Prager and others. Ulmen's real life wife Collien Fernandes has a cameo.
This film is about a man who falls in love with a Turkish woman and as he grows closer with her, he also meets her family, which results in him strangely adapting to their Turkish lifestyle and becoming an unlikable macho, thus the title reference I guess. Now this is probably the weirdest development in this movie. I personally did not feel ever that this was a realistic character transformation that could have happened like this in real life. And same can be said about the way how he transforms back so quickly towards the end, so they could make sure we get the totally expected happy ending between the two. German movies about foreign cultures here in Germany have become an institution right now. There are so so many and everybody with an interest in German film can immediately name one or two I think, maybe even five. But this one here offers nothing of value when it comes to this approach. It is not funny, it is not smart and the comedy is very underwhelming, which is pretty disappointing as Ulmen has much more talent than the screen writers let him show us here. And sometimes, the comedy is actually pretty offensive when it tries to be edgy, but stays completely ineffective and embarrassing for example on a joke about Anne Frank.
This film here is the epitome of a Matthias Schweighöfer comedy, even if the main character is played by Ulmen. At least Schweighöfer's mother is on board, so it still kinda fits. It tries to be dramatic, include a lesson for the main character and audience and even make a difference dramatically at times. But it all rings very false and the low-point of the entire thing is maybe when Ulmen's character eventually makes a statement as we should not change ourselves into somebody that we aren't because there is somebody out there who loves us exactly the way we are. Eurgh! There are more example of this, but I will not list them. If you really decide to watch this film (which you should not!), then you will know what I mean. I am not really sure how successful this film was at the box office, but I do know that comedies with this fairly low ambitious approach manage to lure many people into theaters these days, so maybe we, the audience, are the reason they still get made. It's time to overthink our viewing patterns. Start with my recommendation here to stay far far away from this piece of garbage. Yes there were moments when I was tempted to give this film a 4/10, but it really wasn't that many and overall, I am convinced that a rating of 4 or the even higher rating here on IMDb would be way too much. Highly not recommended. The script is terrible, everything else is weak.
This film is about a man who falls in love with a Turkish woman and as he grows closer with her, he also meets her family, which results in him strangely adapting to their Turkish lifestyle and becoming an unlikable macho, thus the title reference I guess. Now this is probably the weirdest development in this movie. I personally did not feel ever that this was a realistic character transformation that could have happened like this in real life. And same can be said about the way how he transforms back so quickly towards the end, so they could make sure we get the totally expected happy ending between the two. German movies about foreign cultures here in Germany have become an institution right now. There are so so many and everybody with an interest in German film can immediately name one or two I think, maybe even five. But this one here offers nothing of value when it comes to this approach. It is not funny, it is not smart and the comedy is very underwhelming, which is pretty disappointing as Ulmen has much more talent than the screen writers let him show us here. And sometimes, the comedy is actually pretty offensive when it tries to be edgy, but stays completely ineffective and embarrassing for example on a joke about Anne Frank.
This film here is the epitome of a Matthias Schweighöfer comedy, even if the main character is played by Ulmen. At least Schweighöfer's mother is on board, so it still kinda fits. It tries to be dramatic, include a lesson for the main character and audience and even make a difference dramatically at times. But it all rings very false and the low-point of the entire thing is maybe when Ulmen's character eventually makes a statement as we should not change ourselves into somebody that we aren't because there is somebody out there who loves us exactly the way we are. Eurgh! There are more example of this, but I will not list them. If you really decide to watch this film (which you should not!), then you will know what I mean. I am not really sure how successful this film was at the box office, but I do know that comedies with this fairly low ambitious approach manage to lure many people into theaters these days, so maybe we, the audience, are the reason they still get made. It's time to overthink our viewing patterns. Start with my recommendation here to stay far far away from this piece of garbage. Yes there were moments when I was tempted to give this film a 4/10, but it really wasn't that many and overall, I am convinced that a rating of 4 or the even higher rating here on IMDb would be way too much. Highly not recommended. The script is terrible, everything else is weak.