"Von Mäusen und Lügen" is a German German-language television film from 2011, so this one will have its 10th anniversary in summer this year and, unless you show up here right after I wrote this review, it probably happened already. Just like the vast majority of other German small screen releases, this one here runs for minimally under 1.5 hours, especially if we are talking about ARD movies. There it is almost always the case. This may for once not be a Degeto movie, at least no such inclusion here on imdb, but sadly this does not stop the film from being just as bad as these hundreds of ARD Degeto films. A look at the trio who made this one makes it obvious really quickly. Director Sibylle Tafel has worked on so many terrible projects over the last 25 years (then 15 years) and the only exception are her fairytale films that were sometimes semi-watchable. The writers are Bahmann and Hertwig. The former launched his career earlier, namely in the last 1980s already, Hertwig a little later, and you can say about both that what they did early on may not have been great, but it was definitely better than what they made afterwards. For Hertwig for example it all went south when he started penning some of these highly forgettable Donna Leon crime movie adaptations. Kinda fitting that he is working right now for the of the South German SOKO series and these are really the low point in terms of German crime television. I feel sorry for everybody who sees some quality in those. But maybe this is where Hertwig belongs. This film here makes it pretty obvious. Also it is not unusual at all that he collaborated with Bahmann here because these two have really worked together on many projects in the past, some full feature films, several of those for rather young audiences, and also many television episodes. Bahmann is also part of the aforementioned SOKO series. This is where our GEZ money goes, folks.
As for the cast here, the man you see on the right of the photo here on imdb is Ulrich Noethen of course. I think I liked him more in the past than I do now because honestly with highly uninspired projects like this one here he is not doing himself any favors. It also feels as if he knows because to me it seemed as if he was really lackluster with his performance here. What a joke that he got nominated for an award nonetheless for his portrayal here. But then again, Til Schweiger won a key awards during that ceremony too. Enough said. As for Noethen, guess he was just cashing in on the pretty decent salary that came from GEZ money of course too. The female lead is played by Melika Foroutan this time. Not too much to say about her. I think she is not unattractive, but a particularly good actress she isn't. I will elaborate a little more about the key characters later on. Heio von Stetten is another familiar faces and German film buffs will definitely recognize several cast members here. von Stetten, however, also has been in many, many of these really terrible ARD releases in the past. I cannot go easy on him here. As uninspired as it gets. His character here was also very forgettable. At least you can say about Noethen that he has been in some really solid projects in the past, also convincing big screen releases. And back in 2011 he had been in the industry for 20 years exactly it seems, so a bit of a round anniversary. The rest of the cast is not really worth mentioning. Not too familiar with most of them, even if some had successful acting careers by then already and even I as a German film buff am neither familiar with the names or faces, even if at least Vanessa Krüger's face is on the cute side. But that does not make her material better either. She is playing the daughter who is not too happy that her father is not getting together with her mother again. By the way, the title means translated "Of mice and lies". That even rhymes. But it makes really no sense at all and has almost no connection to the story, even if you assume that "mice" in this context refers to money as we say it here in Germany.
There were simply too many weak and unrealistic scenes, plus the usual cringeworthy approach where 20 minutes before the end all seems lost and then all is magically fixed again eventually. Who cares about authenticity. I will just mention a few scenes and inclusions now that felt really fake all along and just part of the film for the purpose of entertaining the audience, which they also didn't because they were simply not funny and at the same time not relevant in terms of the story either, even if they tried so hard to make them seem relevant. By the way, it's always sad to see more than one filmmaker mess up a script like it happened here. I mean you'd really expect that they spot each other's mistakes here, but the truth is they just seem to be bringing out the worst in each other and it is ridiculous they are still getting employed to write screenplays. It may sound harsh, but the quality here is indeed so bad, that it is a valid approach to seeing things. Maybe the only valid one. Nobody can like this film from the story perspective if they have the slightest bit of taste in movies. Now for the scenes: There is the scene with this intruder down there who keeps switching on and off the light. The pseudo-dramatic music in this sequence haha. But this was still better than some of the others. Like the scene with the construction workers out there was maybe the most cringeworthy of them all. I mean the two protagonists were just talking and they are there making these gestures? What the heck? They would have been fired a long time, already for looking inside the apartments instead of working, but this was really when the film hit rock bottom. Or actually it got even worse when they are attacked with the bucket by Noethen's character. Sigh.
What else? Ah yes, the scene(s) with the children's mother. Now that was really pseudo drama of the worst kind and also how it extended beyond with what the daughter said and did that I mentioned earlier. It's kinda tough to remember everything because I really lost interest in this film during the watch. Oh yes, the ceiling crashing down. Sadly about this I have not forgotten yet. Sorry, but stuff like that does not happen in real life constantly as this film tries to convince us. The talk about the free apartment early on escalated more quickly than I thought too, but if you see this as somewhat accurate, which you can from the perspective that she wants to be independent, then there is no justification for her changing her mind so quickly about said apartment. The beginning of the film by the way made me think this could be going into a completely different direction with the grumpy old man, but then it turned into nothing but forgettable romance kitsch eventually. But this beginning also feels unrealistic. Of course, the elderly can be moody, but still difficult to believe that all of a sudden he won't accept the place they agreed on and also that the old man is really harsh when telling Noethen's character to go. And that the old man dies immediately afterwards is one thing, which came as a surprise, but that the granddaughter moves in there (is that even legally accurate?) and Noethen's character falls for her quickly, is just too much. So they key plot is a gigantic mess. There is no other way to put it. And the ridiculous explanation why he is at the hospital apparently they found so creative that they included it twice. Of course, it is not the woman to blame for hitting him, but his partner or also he is himself to blame. But no surprise here either, ARD have a long history with anti-male movies. The women are desirable, the men are fools, even they are at the center of the story, which Noethen here definitely is more than Foroutan's character. No positive words on the intimidation inclusions either, such as the rope rabbit. It's all so bad. From every perspective.
What the people said to each other was also written relatively poorly I must say. There are many examples, but I will just mention one that was maybe the very worst for me from all of them. On one occasion, Noethen's character is very upset with another character and what does he tell him? He says that he has medical equipment in his apartment up there that can cause terrible damage when used the wrong way? Now that is what I call a worrying threat. The shocking thing is they were really serious with that and nonetheless, at the very same time, the way how exaggerated this scene was, in terms of Noethen's voice and everything, it was still at least partially meant for comedic reasons. But it simply isn't funny. There are so many moments when this movie realls sucks. So many scenes. Just take the one with the mailbox. You will know what I am talking about when you see said scene. ut you really shouldn't. What you should do is skip this film 100%. If I remember correctly, 2011 was pretty much among they years where they dished out one terrible television film after the next and the fact that probably even premiered at prime time says it all. Right now, even if they take more GEZ money than ever, things look a little better. Not in the sense that they are finally using these billions to come up with quality movies, but I think the sheer quantity of terrible films from ARD (Degeto) is by far not as high anymore as it was ten years for for example. So yeah, I think all is said about this one here. Major thumbs-down. Highly not recommended.
As for the cast here, the man you see on the right of the photo here on imdb is Ulrich Noethen of course. I think I liked him more in the past than I do now because honestly with highly uninspired projects like this one here he is not doing himself any favors. It also feels as if he knows because to me it seemed as if he was really lackluster with his performance here. What a joke that he got nominated for an award nonetheless for his portrayal here. But then again, Til Schweiger won a key awards during that ceremony too. Enough said. As for Noethen, guess he was just cashing in on the pretty decent salary that came from GEZ money of course too. The female lead is played by Melika Foroutan this time. Not too much to say about her. I think she is not unattractive, but a particularly good actress she isn't. I will elaborate a little more about the key characters later on. Heio von Stetten is another familiar faces and German film buffs will definitely recognize several cast members here. von Stetten, however, also has been in many, many of these really terrible ARD releases in the past. I cannot go easy on him here. As uninspired as it gets. His character here was also very forgettable. At least you can say about Noethen that he has been in some really solid projects in the past, also convincing big screen releases. And back in 2011 he had been in the industry for 20 years exactly it seems, so a bit of a round anniversary. The rest of the cast is not really worth mentioning. Not too familiar with most of them, even if some had successful acting careers by then already and even I as a German film buff am neither familiar with the names or faces, even if at least Vanessa Krüger's face is on the cute side. But that does not make her material better either. She is playing the daughter who is not too happy that her father is not getting together with her mother again. By the way, the title means translated "Of mice and lies". That even rhymes. But it makes really no sense at all and has almost no connection to the story, even if you assume that "mice" in this context refers to money as we say it here in Germany.
There were simply too many weak and unrealistic scenes, plus the usual cringeworthy approach where 20 minutes before the end all seems lost and then all is magically fixed again eventually. Who cares about authenticity. I will just mention a few scenes and inclusions now that felt really fake all along and just part of the film for the purpose of entertaining the audience, which they also didn't because they were simply not funny and at the same time not relevant in terms of the story either, even if they tried so hard to make them seem relevant. By the way, it's always sad to see more than one filmmaker mess up a script like it happened here. I mean you'd really expect that they spot each other's mistakes here, but the truth is they just seem to be bringing out the worst in each other and it is ridiculous they are still getting employed to write screenplays. It may sound harsh, but the quality here is indeed so bad, that it is a valid approach to seeing things. Maybe the only valid one. Nobody can like this film from the story perspective if they have the slightest bit of taste in movies. Now for the scenes: There is the scene with this intruder down there who keeps switching on and off the light. The pseudo-dramatic music in this sequence haha. But this was still better than some of the others. Like the scene with the construction workers out there was maybe the most cringeworthy of them all. I mean the two protagonists were just talking and they are there making these gestures? What the heck? They would have been fired a long time, already for looking inside the apartments instead of working, but this was really when the film hit rock bottom. Or actually it got even worse when they are attacked with the bucket by Noethen's character. Sigh.
What else? Ah yes, the scene(s) with the children's mother. Now that was really pseudo drama of the worst kind and also how it extended beyond with what the daughter said and did that I mentioned earlier. It's kinda tough to remember everything because I really lost interest in this film during the watch. Oh yes, the ceiling crashing down. Sadly about this I have not forgotten yet. Sorry, but stuff like that does not happen in real life constantly as this film tries to convince us. The talk about the free apartment early on escalated more quickly than I thought too, but if you see this as somewhat accurate, which you can from the perspective that she wants to be independent, then there is no justification for her changing her mind so quickly about said apartment. The beginning of the film by the way made me think this could be going into a completely different direction with the grumpy old man, but then it turned into nothing but forgettable romance kitsch eventually. But this beginning also feels unrealistic. Of course, the elderly can be moody, but still difficult to believe that all of a sudden he won't accept the place they agreed on and also that the old man is really harsh when telling Noethen's character to go. And that the old man dies immediately afterwards is one thing, which came as a surprise, but that the granddaughter moves in there (is that even legally accurate?) and Noethen's character falls for her quickly, is just too much. So they key plot is a gigantic mess. There is no other way to put it. And the ridiculous explanation why he is at the hospital apparently they found so creative that they included it twice. Of course, it is not the woman to blame for hitting him, but his partner or also he is himself to blame. But no surprise here either, ARD have a long history with anti-male movies. The women are desirable, the men are fools, even they are at the center of the story, which Noethen here definitely is more than Foroutan's character. No positive words on the intimidation inclusions either, such as the rope rabbit. It's all so bad. From every perspective.
What the people said to each other was also written relatively poorly I must say. There are many examples, but I will just mention one that was maybe the very worst for me from all of them. On one occasion, Noethen's character is very upset with another character and what does he tell him? He says that he has medical equipment in his apartment up there that can cause terrible damage when used the wrong way? Now that is what I call a worrying threat. The shocking thing is they were really serious with that and nonetheless, at the very same time, the way how exaggerated this scene was, in terms of Noethen's voice and everything, it was still at least partially meant for comedic reasons. But it simply isn't funny. There are so many moments when this movie realls sucks. So many scenes. Just take the one with the mailbox. You will know what I am talking about when you see said scene. ut you really shouldn't. What you should do is skip this film 100%. If I remember correctly, 2011 was pretty much among they years where they dished out one terrible television film after the next and the fact that probably even premiered at prime time says it all. Right now, even if they take more GEZ money than ever, things look a little better. Not in the sense that they are finally using these billions to come up with quality movies, but I think the sheer quantity of terrible films from ARD (Degeto) is by far not as high anymore as it was ten years for for example. So yeah, I think all is said about this one here. Major thumbs-down. Highly not recommended.
