User Reviews

"Off Shore" is a German movie from 2011, so this one has its 10th anniversary soon, maybe already did depending on when you read this review. It runs for almost 1.5 hours and was written and directed by Sven J. Matten, his very first full feature movie and looking at how things turned out eventually it is kinda good that he has not been too prolific since then unless he clearly improved. You can already see from the title what I am thinking about this movie and I rarely say stuff like that because honestly if you dig deep enough you will find a component of creative quality in every movie you are looking for really, but this one here is the exception. It's tough to say what is worst about it all, the botched plots about father-son relationship, girl-boy relationship or maybe the small moments when the film fails like when we have one character call the other "tiger" on several occasions. Or maybe it is the last act when we have one character find out that the boy he is crushing on may very well be his own half-brother. You can see the subject already from the poster here on imdb. This is a gay-themed movie, which would be perfectly fine if it delivered quality and a good story around that homosexuality element. But it does not. It completely relies on people (gays) to watch because it is about gays and that is it. This happens mostly in short films too, but here we have a full feature movie where it is also true. Shockingly bad film at times. I am not into surfing at all, but honestly I did not think the sport could look as unappealing as it does here. Or how they really managed the impossible to make the island of Fuerteventura look so bland and bleak that the tourism industry from there should sue the movie makers. Sure takes a special lack of talent to do so. But Matten has it. Or has it not I should say. It is also shown in the cast list. Most of the actors are cringeworthily bad. This especially applies to lead actor André Würde who is in basically every scene and truly unwatchable, not capable of beinging anything to the table when it comes to sadness, love, anger, joy etc. You name it he doesn't have it. Which is especially painful because he has really baity material to work with. Then again it is all just superficial and never really deep and convincingly into the subject matter at hand. Just a mess. There's a reason why Würde was only cast on one other occasion for a small part it seems since then. The rest of the cast are not much better. The father actor is tolerable and so is the female surf teacher, but really only because they are not as bad as everybody else, not because the yare good or something. What else can I say here? The dialogues feel so awkward really as there are the most hilarious long breaks when they talk. It just doesn't feel real at all and we are supposed the characters have chemistry. It is actually so bad it is almost funny again. But no this film is not a guilty pleasure. What also hurts it is how seriously it takes itself rom beginning to end. It seems they really believed they were coming up with something of good quality. How did they not see it. Can it just be lack of experience? I mean Matten's co-writer has never worked on a script before or after this film again. This would be the only explanation. Finally, another big failure is the music that is constantly shoved into our ears with the most mediocre films playing so frequently that you could almost think this is a music movie, even if the cast are not performing of course. Overall, huge thumbs-down for this one. Glad imdb voters finally recognized it too. This one is a terrible movie from beginning to end and people working on it should be ashamed they did not just discontinue the project, but actually released it. A definite contender for worst German film of 2011. Highly not recommended.