"Liebe ohne Minze" is a German television film from 2011, so this one is almost a decade old now. The title means "Love without mint", which may sound a bit strange, but I will get to that later and say why I think this is a terrible title indeed. The alternate title of thise under 1.5-hour film is "Hochzeit mit Hindernissen" ("Wedding with obstacles"), also a bad title, but admittedly not as bad as the one they actually went for. The director is Karsten Wichniarz, who has been active in the industry for decades, but his body of work is the epitome of quantity over quality as he has worked on so many weak, if not terrible, projects over the years. Mostly television shows in fact, so this movie is a bit of an exception. The bad news is he is still active despite being at an age where most people/filmmakers are retired. The writer is Martina Brand. She has not been as active as Wichniarz, but still worked on a decent quantity of films since the early 1990s. Same applies to her. All quantity, zero quality and she does not seem to be active anymore, at least has not come up woth something new in quite a while according to imdb. As for the cast, it is pretty much what you would expect for a disappointing German television romance film from the early 2010s. Plate, Zierl and Sander are actors who have been in many embarrassing television releases. You can say in their favor that their characters were written so poorly that not even the most gifted actors could have made them work. However, nobody forced them to appear in a trashy film like this. The young protagonost is played by Lena Beyerling and this was is her final credit. A bit surprising really because her role is not minor at all, but it seems she focused on a normal life afterwards, even if the headlines she made not too long ago also put her somewhat back in the limelight. Now one truly bizarre thing here is the poster that somebody uploaded on imdb. No idea what's up with that. We see the two protagonists considerably younger than they are in the movie. There is a flashback sequence in here, but that was played by the same actors and they just tried to make them seem younger with girly haircuts etc. But this is not what they took the poster from. Truly strange. It still looks fairly amateurish, the style and everything and the plot summary we have here on imdb with this really broken English fits my perception. definitely no professionals at work here when it comes to this film. Or actually there were. But that does not mean they are talented.
Okay, let me say a few words about plot and story and a few specific scenes here that made it very obvious to me this is a really bad film. First of all, the general premise is a mess. I mean are we really supposed to believe that a teenage girl (she was not 18 or anything) simply manages to run away from home and reach Morocco? I mean if it had been France, Denmark. Maybe Italy even, I could have found slightly realistic, but Morocco? Hard to believe. And this is absolutely not where the lack of authenticity ends. When she is there, she finds her father quickly and that is kinda okay because she was determined to find him. However, when her mother shows up and she was of course Sander's character's ex, then things take a turn for the ridiculous again. Like of course he works with the police force there too and is immediately ready to take on the case. What? It stays nonsense like this for the rest of the movie. I personally had a really hard time with everything linked to Plate's character. I mean she was clearly meant to be seen as likable as a dedicated woman and mother. But to me the was the exact opposite. Just take a look at all she did. She kept her child away from the father, which is strictly against all kinds of morals. The girl needed her dad. The father would have been happy to know he had a daughter. She left from one second to the next back then and the only one to blame really is Sander's character's father. There are always excuses for her. Then she is about to get married, but does not have the decency to stay faithful to her fiancé. But of course it is true love with the new/old guy, so that justifies it and makes it right. Then she still gets to stay friend with her fiancé because she is such an amazing woman. And how does she break up with him? That's right: Over the mint mentioned in the title? Are you kidding me? This is such a random thing. Like okay he does not remember every little detail what she likes and does not like. Does that make him a bad person? After he showed up with all these flowers. And, most of all, after she cheated on him in cold blood. I don't even want to imagine what it would have been the other way around, like if Zierl's character had cheated on her while she was in Morocco. He would have been scum. He would have been an unfaithful pig. Or even worse. This is a prime example of how sexist many of thee films are. When Degeto and Theaterkunst GmbH are involved, it's never a good sign. For quality altogether. Also how they tried to depict Zierl's character negatively with how he is skeptical on the phone if she is sleeping with her ex again (is that justification for her to really do it) or how the young central character does not like him for whatever reason. They wanted us to not like him either. Another bad joke involving other characters is the father-son story we have here like with how he is mad at his dad and says he will always respect him, but that's it. And in the end it is solved by the father simply saying to the son (Sander's character) that he will retire with immediate effect and the son will follow in his footsteps. That was so strange. The epitome of a rushed and highly forced happy ending as you see them so often in these movies. And don't even get me started on the pseudo-dramatic scorpoon story. So fake sadly. Okay, the dog was cute, but that is pretty much the only positive thing for me to say about this movie. It may sound harsh, but it really is this bad. Also given the fact that it plays in Marrakech, it could have been at least visually astounding, but not even that they managed. No matter which perspective you take here, this film is an abomination. No creativity. No talent. No ambition. Massive thumbs-dowwn. Highly not recommended. Better watch Link's "Exit Marrakech" instead. It's better all-around in terms of the romance parts, the father-son story and the tribute to Morocco. Then again, it does not need much to be better than this travesty we got here. Horrible writing all along, also the dialogues.
Okay, let me say a few words about plot and story and a few specific scenes here that made it very obvious to me this is a really bad film. First of all, the general premise is a mess. I mean are we really supposed to believe that a teenage girl (she was not 18 or anything) simply manages to run away from home and reach Morocco? I mean if it had been France, Denmark. Maybe Italy even, I could have found slightly realistic, but Morocco? Hard to believe. And this is absolutely not where the lack of authenticity ends. When she is there, she finds her father quickly and that is kinda okay because she was determined to find him. However, when her mother shows up and she was of course Sander's character's ex, then things take a turn for the ridiculous again. Like of course he works with the police force there too and is immediately ready to take on the case. What? It stays nonsense like this for the rest of the movie. I personally had a really hard time with everything linked to Plate's character. I mean she was clearly meant to be seen as likable as a dedicated woman and mother. But to me the was the exact opposite. Just take a look at all she did. She kept her child away from the father, which is strictly against all kinds of morals. The girl needed her dad. The father would have been happy to know he had a daughter. She left from one second to the next back then and the only one to blame really is Sander's character's father. There are always excuses for her. Then she is about to get married, but does not have the decency to stay faithful to her fiancé. But of course it is true love with the new/old guy, so that justifies it and makes it right. Then she still gets to stay friend with her fiancé because she is such an amazing woman. And how does she break up with him? That's right: Over the mint mentioned in the title? Are you kidding me? This is such a random thing. Like okay he does not remember every little detail what she likes and does not like. Does that make him a bad person? After he showed up with all these flowers. And, most of all, after she cheated on him in cold blood. I don't even want to imagine what it would have been the other way around, like if Zierl's character had cheated on her while she was in Morocco. He would have been scum. He would have been an unfaithful pig. Or even worse. This is a prime example of how sexist many of thee films are. When Degeto and Theaterkunst GmbH are involved, it's never a good sign. For quality altogether. Also how they tried to depict Zierl's character negatively with how he is skeptical on the phone if she is sleeping with her ex again (is that justification for her to really do it) or how the young central character does not like him for whatever reason. They wanted us to not like him either. Another bad joke involving other characters is the father-son story we have here like with how he is mad at his dad and says he will always respect him, but that's it. And in the end it is solved by the father simply saying to the son (Sander's character) that he will retire with immediate effect and the son will follow in his footsteps. That was so strange. The epitome of a rushed and highly forced happy ending as you see them so often in these movies. And don't even get me started on the pseudo-dramatic scorpoon story. So fake sadly. Okay, the dog was cute, but that is pretty much the only positive thing for me to say about this movie. It may sound harsh, but it really is this bad. Also given the fact that it plays in Marrakech, it could have been at least visually astounding, but not even that they managed. No matter which perspective you take here, this film is an abomination. No creativity. No talent. No ambition. Massive thumbs-dowwn. Highly not recommended. Better watch Link's "Exit Marrakech" instead. It's better all-around in terms of the romance parts, the father-son story and the tribute to Morocco. Then again, it does not need much to be better than this travesty we got here. Horrible writing all along, also the dialogues.
