"Zwei Männer und ein Baby", which means "Two Men and a Baby", is a German television film from 2004 that had its 15th anniversary last year and maybe, depending on when you read my review, the 20th anniversary already happened. The director is Ilse Hoffmann and she turned 70 last year and has not been in charge of new projects for a decade now, which is actually really good because her body of work is not exactly packed with quality if you know what I mean. This is really gently-speaking too because pretty much the opposite is the case. Writer Stefan Kuhlmann is young, especially back then, and still working it seems, but yeah, even if his body of work is absolutely not as prolifics as hers, he is on course to be considered equally bad 15 years from now. The lead actor you already see on the photo here on imdb. It's Heiner Lauterbach that really everybody here in Germany knows for sure. Definitely a big name. However, not a big actor by any means and, even if he may not be complete trash like the film he is in here, heis extremely overrated and surely has a tendency to play the exact same character in every film he is in. or in most at least. It's usually very masculine men, always a bit on the grumpy side and they don't talk much and successful in their profession. All this is the case here too. However, the title really is a fraud and this show you how little attention to detail this film has if they already messed up the extremely generic title. It's never about the second man, his budiness partner and he is the brother of the female protagonist. But I will get too that one later. It should be named "A man and a baby". This would be accurate. The screen time, if anybody measured it, would make it 100% obvious. The female protagonist is played by Sandra Speichert. not too much to say about her. i think she is a really terrible actress with considerably less talent than Lauterbach even and sometimes I am biased with female actors, especially when they are dark-haired, but here there is no excuse. At all. Speichert is not lead actress material, she is also not supporting actress material. I would have preferred her to have another career away from the film industry. This may sound harsh, but it's accurate. The seccond man from the title is played by Michael Roll and he is the epitome of an actor who is really easy to recognize and remember, but you never remember his name. He was decent enough I suppose to be picked as he would not take too much attention away from Lauterbach's character. Also in terms of the story. He is really forgettable to be honest. That's pretty much all there is to say about the cast. Oh no, one more thing. the small child is "played" by Maya Lauterbach. A nice family memory for the Lauterbachs, but honestly, even if she is still in films today, I must say I struggle with calling her an actress looking at everything she has appeared in. She became legal earlier this year by the way, this shows you how old this film already is and how young she was back then.
Now a few mentions and elaboration on the story and script we have here. I will start with the positive. I won't deny that sometimes this film is so absurd that it was actually funny. The tragic thing, however, is that they were really seriously with it all from the story perspective. With how these women in the park react towards Lauterbach's character. How he tells the most absurd lies and they all fall for it, all fall for these different stories. And even if those women are apparently constantly in touch with each other, it did not come out. The truth I mean. What did come out was Lauterbach's lies when Speichert's character was almost attacked by one of the woman from the park as she recognized the girl and thought it was Speichert's character who is the worst mother on the planet. One who even beats her husband. Yeah right, Lauterbach is the one who gets beaten by women. Sigh. But yeah, this confrontation was still somewhat funny. So I won't deny that this is a film that here and there is indeed so bad it's funny. But that is honestly the one and only positive thing I can say here. Everything else is nonsense. Everything else is trash. This especially includes the business going on with these two men and their creative collaboration. Made no sense at all. Already the reaction by the woman who is the boss there or so and actually disagrees with her colleague that the playground they were designing is like a cage, but instead thought it shall also be closed on top. So even more. And in this scene they also made clear that Lauterbach is the virile one, the one in charge who will not bow down immediately when somebody with money tells him to do something. And if you think this introduction scene about their profession was already bad, wait how it all continues. Take the conflicts between the two men when Roll's character on several occasions screams at Lauterbach's to get going and all this while he allowed his sister and their loud stressful child to move in with them. Honestly, I would have kicked them out immediately. But yeah, of course Lauterbach's character also has a soft core and grows closer with the baby as he spends more time with it. Although he totally did not want to. Oh yeah, remember wwhen Roll's character said something like "Lauterbach's character is not a man to accept things he does not like. Not a man who won't speak up." before Lauterbach's and Speichert's characters meet. That was so cringe too. Same about the final job presentation scene. It's so bad I cannot put into words how much it sucked. You have to experience to understand. Or better not. It was a mess. Speichert's character is of course also one we should not forget how gorgeous and desirably she is. These films are for women, so female flaws in Ziegler production are always likable in a way or the women are perfect anyway. So we have another man who wants Speichert's character. For the most part at least. But she is not in love. And tells him eventually. And boom, what? He is gay. Yeah right, that feels realistic. Happens a lot too in Ziegler and Degeto movies, such nonsense that they are all of a sudden into the other gender without ever knowing. Luckily, there is a handsome gay waiter ready waiting (no pun intended!). You see how much this makes sense. Okay, before I stop back to the two lovebirds. There is a reference about garclic and another about tea (there we also see Speichert plays the know-it-all character and Lauterbach plays the grumpy fool, who does not accept the beauty and depth of Speichert's character) in which Speichert's character makes it very obvious she is interested in Lauterbach's. It's all so bad, also when, what I implied earlier, Speichert's character is told on at least two occasions how gorgeous she is. I don't know what to say about this film. It was more than enough anyway. I just wanna forget it. By now you should understand this is a film you wanna skip at any cost. Thanks if you still got here reading my review. Massive thumbs-down and finally a film where the rating is accurate. Or even still slightly too high, but many of these German films are so bad, especially the small screen releases and still have solid ratings. The story here is also not the most creative one to be honest. Not too long ago, I watched a film with a similar story about a single man using a female character's baby to pick up girls on the street / in the park (while still staying totally harmless, there is no sex or anything, not even kissing, usually a phone call gets in the way to keep it family-friendly), but admittedly this other film also could have been newer. Not sure about it as I dont watch in chronological order only and this one here is fairly old already. And the subplot with Roll's character and his relationship and his partner even being pregnant certainly made things not better at all. Again, the woman is in charge as always. Or how Speichert's character goes to one single job interview and immediately is accepted like right after the interview. Unreal stuff. No connection to reality whatsoever. And then she still complains about it not being a superb job, but okay as a start. Queen's too sublime for a mediocre existence. That much is safe. Okay, now I really finish. Watch something else instead. These four words are really enough.
Now a few mentions and elaboration on the story and script we have here. I will start with the positive. I won't deny that sometimes this film is so absurd that it was actually funny. The tragic thing, however, is that they were really seriously with it all from the story perspective. With how these women in the park react towards Lauterbach's character. How he tells the most absurd lies and they all fall for it, all fall for these different stories. And even if those women are apparently constantly in touch with each other, it did not come out. The truth I mean. What did come out was Lauterbach's lies when Speichert's character was almost attacked by one of the woman from the park as she recognized the girl and thought it was Speichert's character who is the worst mother on the planet. One who even beats her husband. Yeah right, Lauterbach is the one who gets beaten by women. Sigh. But yeah, this confrontation was still somewhat funny. So I won't deny that this is a film that here and there is indeed so bad it's funny. But that is honestly the one and only positive thing I can say here. Everything else is nonsense. Everything else is trash. This especially includes the business going on with these two men and their creative collaboration. Made no sense at all. Already the reaction by the woman who is the boss there or so and actually disagrees with her colleague that the playground they were designing is like a cage, but instead thought it shall also be closed on top. So even more. And in this scene they also made clear that Lauterbach is the virile one, the one in charge who will not bow down immediately when somebody with money tells him to do something. And if you think this introduction scene about their profession was already bad, wait how it all continues. Take the conflicts between the two men when Roll's character on several occasions screams at Lauterbach's to get going and all this while he allowed his sister and their loud stressful child to move in with them. Honestly, I would have kicked them out immediately. But yeah, of course Lauterbach's character also has a soft core and grows closer with the baby as he spends more time with it. Although he totally did not want to. Oh yeah, remember wwhen Roll's character said something like "Lauterbach's character is not a man to accept things he does not like. Not a man who won't speak up." before Lauterbach's and Speichert's characters meet. That was so cringe too. Same about the final job presentation scene. It's so bad I cannot put into words how much it sucked. You have to experience to understand. Or better not. It was a mess. Speichert's character is of course also one we should not forget how gorgeous and desirably she is. These films are for women, so female flaws in Ziegler production are always likable in a way or the women are perfect anyway. So we have another man who wants Speichert's character. For the most part at least. But she is not in love. And tells him eventually. And boom, what? He is gay. Yeah right, that feels realistic. Happens a lot too in Ziegler and Degeto movies, such nonsense that they are all of a sudden into the other gender without ever knowing. Luckily, there is a handsome gay waiter ready waiting (no pun intended!). You see how much this makes sense. Okay, before I stop back to the two lovebirds. There is a reference about garclic and another about tea (there we also see Speichert plays the know-it-all character and Lauterbach plays the grumpy fool, who does not accept the beauty and depth of Speichert's character) in which Speichert's character makes it very obvious she is interested in Lauterbach's. It's all so bad, also when, what I implied earlier, Speichert's character is told on at least two occasions how gorgeous she is. I don't know what to say about this film. It was more than enough anyway. I just wanna forget it. By now you should understand this is a film you wanna skip at any cost. Thanks if you still got here reading my review. Massive thumbs-down and finally a film where the rating is accurate. Or even still slightly too high, but many of these German films are so bad, especially the small screen releases and still have solid ratings. The story here is also not the most creative one to be honest. Not too long ago, I watched a film with a similar story about a single man using a female character's baby to pick up girls on the street / in the park (while still staying totally harmless, there is no sex or anything, not even kissing, usually a phone call gets in the way to keep it family-friendly), but admittedly this other film also could have been newer. Not sure about it as I dont watch in chronological order only and this one here is fairly old already. And the subplot with Roll's character and his relationship and his partner even being pregnant certainly made things not better at all. Again, the woman is in charge as always. Or how Speichert's character goes to one single job interview and immediately is accepted like right after the interview. Unreal stuff. No connection to reality whatsoever. And then she still complains about it not being a superb job, but okay as a start. Queen's too sublime for a mediocre existence. That much is safe. Okay, now I really finish. Watch something else instead. These four words are really enough.
