User Reviews

"Pepe, der Paukerschreck" is the third film from the West German film series about the Lümmel (runs like 90 minutes just like the older films), a group of students who keep playing pranks on their teachers. All in all, there are 7 films, so with this one half of it is almost over. The director here is Harald Reinl and the writer is Franz Seitz and if you take a look at other works by them, you will realize that they were very successful filmmakers. And the success of this film series (especially with audiences) does not make it a surprise that some of Germany's filmmaking elite worked on these movies that were mostly aimed at younger audiences. But also grown-ups like myself can have a good time watching this film. The good news is that Theo Lingen has much more screen time here, the bad news is that Hans Clarin is nowhere near Peter Alexander's level in the second film. The story is similar to the previous movies. It is always the familiar faces as students and teachers, but one new teacher is added who takes over the problematic class and gets along surprisingly well with them. And then there is the pranks of course. In my opinion, the level of these has gone a bit south and not all of them were entertaining anymore, especially the one they play on Knörz is kinda mean, even if it serves a good purpose in the end. The cast includes a handful big names again from Germany, such as Kraus, Elsner, Glas, the aforementioned Clarin and Lingen, Lippert, Juhnke and May. It is very impressive indeed. And these familiar faces are also the main (and only) reason why I recommend the movie. It's just fun to see the characters from previous films again that you have grown to like (Knörz) and dislike (Pepe). I give it a thumbs-up and hope they can step the quality level up again for the fourth film.