User Reviews

"300 Worte Deutsch" or "300 Words of German" is a German 96-minute movie that premiered back in 2013, but general audiences did not get to see it before last year. The film poster shows us Christoph Maria Herbst, bit the longer the film went, the less significant (and more supporting) his character became. As false as the entire film itself. The cast list is equally inaccurate as, for example, Nadja Uhl is also just a supporting character, but they used these actors to get people to watch the film because the Turkish and Iranian actors in here are all not very well known. And an actually talented actor like Kida Khodr Ramadan was clearly wasted. So what reason is there to watch this one? Not much. Turkish impact in German film has always been a dominant force and luckily for us this resulted in some very good films, by Faith Akin for example. But this movie here never makes a lasting impact. This is especially disappointing as with the immigrant crisis, this could have been a relevant film. Instead, it loses itself in unfunny comedy, nonsensical character relationships and pretty bad romance plots.

There were also several extremely weak moments in detail. One example would be how the female main character gets offered a job immediately after succeeding in the German-language test. Another would be how her father does not care at all in a negative sense about her giving birth, which also came out of nowhere. People who have seen "Die Fremde" know what the appropriate reaction would have been. With Pegah Ferydoni, the picked a very attractive actress for the lead character, but not a very good one. Admittedly, you can't blame her too much, as nobody really could have made this sub-par script by writer and director Feo Aladag work. In then end of course, everything is fixed completely out of nowhere and everybody dances with everybody. The perfect example of an unrealistically forced happy ending. I may be biased here, but Herbst is clearly bait and he is still among the better aspects of the film, but sometimes, even for my taste as a great fan of the series, he channels his inner Stromberg a bit too much. This is not a good movie. The bad easily outweighs the good. Don't watch it.

Normally I would not waste my time reviewing a movie as bad as this but I feel it my duty to let others know. This film is the very worst of its kind. We all know that what makes one person laugh leaves the next one with a look of bemusement. Freud knew. He wrote at length on the subject. But this is not about the jokes. It is about the premise for them. This movie uses the old and tired formula of national differences - Turks and Germans in this case. The one dimensional characters were clearly thought up first and the ridiculous plot - a group of Turkish women forced to learn 300 words of German in order to stay in Germany - came once the actors had been chosen. It has the feel of something made up as it goes along and the resolution beggars belief. If you think British Carry On films made by a Turk in Cologne, you will get some idea. Carry On Films were not everyone's cup of tea but they were well made for the most part and very much tongue in cheek. The leading romantic make does his best with a duff script. The leading lady would not get a job working for free in any of my movies. Hopeless is not the word. Like I said. Do something else when this is showing in your town. Rent a Carry On.