Review of Salami Aleikum

"Salami Aleikum" (bad title, irrelevant and taken from a pointless unfunny quote) is a German movie from 2009, so this 100-minute film will have its 10th anniversary 2 years from now, probably less depending on when you read this review. You could say this is another film from Germany that focuses on a culture clash between Germans and immigrants and there are several parts in Persian here. This is basically the story of a young Persian man living in Germany out to get a great amount of sheep for his father's butcher's shop and on his journey to getting them he ends up in East Germany. And he finds a lot more than he expected there. This what I just described is basically where the film is at its best, namely the first half and judging from that I'd have given it a higher rating, but things get worse fairly quickly when his dad follows the son to the village. This is where it all falls apart. It basically turns into a cringy "Verwechslungskomödie" as the part with the Iranians being mistaken for wealthy investors is just never interesting unfortunately. And as this one is in the very center of the film, it is indeed a negative deal breaker. The cast does not really include too many known names, even if the likes of Grossmann, Böger, Niavarani and Stumph are perhaps familiar faces to big German film buffs. I am a bit surprised this film is still somewhat famous today and that it got writer and director Ali Samadi Ahadi a decent deal of awards recognition because it is really only interesting and well-executed up on the very surface. The love to detail is unsatisfying, if existent at all. The performances are not necessarily bad, but especially the supporting characters suffer from the story-telling deficits too. Grossmann is the best example of a truly one-dimensional main antagonists. I guess the mere existence of different cultures in German films is already enough for them to get awards attention, today and also almost a decade ago already. Overall, halfway in I thought this could be something good, but it quickly decreased in quality for all genres involved. The strong woman parts only work for so long and when we hear a sheep talk near the very end is when the film hits rock-bottom. All in all, I give it a thumbs-down. Don't watch.