User Reviews

Doppelpack was one of the more pleasant surprises in german cinemas recently: Most german films nowadays have plots that attempt (but frequently fail) to be funny, like most of Til Schweiger's oeuvre.

Doppelpack, refreshingly, does not pretend to have more plot than "two buddies go out drinking together, go to a boring family party, meet two girls and go to a punk concert". Still, the film captures the attitude of the two nice "losers": They've withdrawn from the hectic mobile-phone-world of modern Germany into their own underworld, boozing in a park, trying to meet girls ("You know what our problem is? The sort of girl we'd like to meet doesn't often take a stroll round the park with a bottle opener in her handbag"), listening to old-fashioned music (with electric guitars in it)... A great film if you get the joke, which is that a lot can happen even if, on the surface, very little actually does happen. For film lovers.

The movie is about two Mid-Twenty-Guys hanging around in Dortmund. Hoffi is good-looking, easy-going, but not very clever; his best friend Lehmi is more clever, but also more serious and bit pessimistic/aggressive. This movie follows them around a day where they practically do not do much more than walk trough the city in search mostly for beer, but also a gift for Hoffis sisters birthday. On the way they more or less stumble over their dream girls and end up with them on a punk concert. I think this movie is about the unrevealed dream of many Germans, which was subject of more famous works like the fairy-tale "Hans im Glück" or the novel "Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts": not being serious, living in the day AND be happy (which is not possible for many of us). What I like most, were the dialogues, which point out very good the Ruhrpott dialect with its many funny expressions. Also the characters are very sympathetic. For such a small movie, it has an excellent cast (the main protagonists are great, but their also interesting appearances like that of the excellent stage actor Edgar Selge). Two points I did not like: - the movie is a bit too positive about drinking. The protagonists drink all day; but people with this habit I know usually appear to me as losers and not guys who appeal to attractive girls. - some things of the plot were just too obvious, like in a Rom-Com. This goes for the love-story, but also for the struggle scene, which seemingly has to be in every "buddy" movie. I would have liked if they at least have canceled the latter; there are friendships which can be exciting without struggle.

This movie just popped out from nowhere. Based on the short film "pas de deux" from 1998 featuring the same actors, it is simply one of the best movies I have ever seen. I know this area and I even know people exactly as they are shown. Hoffi and Lehmi, the two main characters could be your neighbors, your friends, your children. Maybe their lifestyle is different than yours but it still is real.

There is not much of a story. It's more like following those two guys all day long. And that's what it is all about. You meet them like friends. You spend one day with them and you begin to like them and hope that they'll succeed. And then your life continues and you know, you're not alone...