User Reviews

"Vorsicht vor Leuten" (a bit of a random title, might fit better to a crime movie) is a German television movie from 2015 directed by Arne Feldhusen and based on a novel by Ralf Husmann and it's far from the first collaboration between these two. Husmann also worked on the script by the way. Stromberg comes to mind immediately of course. As for Feldhusen, his lead here is Charly Hübner and they reunited recently for Magical Mystery too. But enough about other projects now, let us take a look at this one here. Like most German television films, this award-winning production runs for 90 minutes and it starts by telling us the story of a man who is about to lose everything: his woman, his job, his future, maybe even his health. Sounds pretty serious, doesn't it? Well, it is not, it#s mostly comedy. The one moment that is more dramatic is really near the end when one major character almost dies during a swimming accident, but looking at how quickly he recovers, it becomes pretty obvious that a dramatic impact is clearly not what they were going for with this movie. It's all about the laughter, even if the comedy is truly subtle most of the time. And that's good as there are quite a few pretty funny moments in here that are never pushed in the audience's faces, but include a great deal of wit. I personally must say I enjoyed the first half of the film more than the second half that takes place on the island of Mallorca, but that is subjective perception of course. I also found it interesting to guess who, if anynbody, the protagonist would end up eventually when it comes to romantic interest, even if in retrospective, it seems there was never any doubt who he wants to be with. I am a Charly Hübner fan, been one for a long time, but here I must say that the awards bodies got it right that Michael Maertens gives the more interesting performance and if you have seen him in other projects like Detlev Buck's Bibi&Tina series, then you know what a chameleon he is if you compare his turn in these with his portrayal here. All in all, not a perfect film by any means and despite the short running time, there are sequences that added virtually nothing and could have been left out completely, but it is nothing too serious. All in all, the good is certainly way more frequent than the bad and it is a film worth checking out, even if once is probably enough as I also don't think there is too much new you will find on rewatch. Nonetheless, this is a film good enough for and deserving of a big screen release, but this way it certainly elevates German television, even if that is no great achievement looking how bad it currently is. Final note: I have not read the book, so I cannot talk about parallels and differences here compared to the base material. But seieng it as a standalone movie, it's a success. I give it a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out. Kinda impressive even, if you look at how bad the state of defining German comedy is right now, has been for quite a while (Schweighöfer).