"Zwei Bauern und kein Land", which means "Two farmers, but no farm" is a German television film from 2017, so still a relatively recent project at over 3.5 years of age now. Director is Sibylle Tafel and I cannot say anything positive about her body of work except her fairytale films maybe, but everything else she has done in over 20 years already now is basically trash and unspired Degeto "entertainment". The screenplay is by Jakob Hein and Robert Krause. Not sure, but to me Hein's body of work looks as if he maybe was the author of the book this is based on because he has far more "self" credits in his body of work. The one for this film here is basically his only writing credit in addition to a short film from four years earlier. But Krause is indeed a pretty experienced screenplay writer. But not a particularly good one by any means. This film is the best example. Maybe he should stay with documentaries. The lead actor here is Ernst Stötzner. He is alright maybe or at least he does not make things worse, which is better than nothing. The title is also really misleading because it implies there are two central characters here, maybe equals even, but Stötzner is the one and only lead here and it is not even close. So the poster is misleading too. However, it is not surprising at all that they featured Katharina Thalbach as much as they could because she simply is a big name, really likable and people immediately recognize her with her looks, voice and a lot more. And let's not forget that she was in the Osccar-winning "Die Blechtrommel", even if that happened a long, long time ago. Reality, however, is she does not have a lot screen time in here and is maybe not even the biggest supporting performance in this movie. Aside from these two, there are almost no really familiar faces in here. Even I as a German film buff struggled with making a connection to anybody, let alone remembering their names. Petra Kleinert I may have come across before, but she is also one I cannot say anything about really. Especially not anything positive. Not a gifted actress at all. I mea Thalbach is also overrated without a doubt, but even she has more versatility. It would still be nice to see Thalbach an evil character for once. These days, she almost always plays likable grannies. Actually for a long time already now because she looks older than she is and has for a while. I shall leave it at that pretty much with the cast, just one quick mention that I was surprised that plays the son is not too known. Okay, maybe it's me. He has been on "Bad Banks" not too long ago, but this was of course also after this film got made.
For me the only question basically was if this is a weak or terrible film. Honestly, especially if we look at all the Degeto stuff, there's really many worse films out there, but this does not mean that this film here is good. It is just tolerable in comparison I assume. Annd I don't remember many good moments either. Only one kind of namely when Stötzner's and Thalbach's characters have a little banter insulting each other, but in a friendly way. After all they were a couple now. Also as for Thalbach, her mayor story went completely wrong. She seems so powerless honestly and the scene in which she offers herresignation made things even worse and was definitely not a highlight whatsoever. At least not the way it was meant to be in an emotionally self-sacrificing way. Besides, everything linked to business was not a success. The mention of Fuchs and how he wants he is an antagonist, but in the end just really one who acted as a representative for a powerful big company. Or the idea how the son thought for a while he wanted to be a farmer too and his constant back-and-forth seemed like the mind of an 18-year-old or so. So this is where the film came short in the family/drama department. In the comedy department, things did not look much better. The idea they have on how to file an application as new/young farmers was not particularly entertaining. But it was still better than the really unrealistic scenario that they run exactly into that female police officer the moment they are driving so quickly to meet the deadline. Or that it is again the one cop who is crushing on the son apparently. This was already really horrible in the opening sequence and there I felt pretty safe already that this is not going to be a good film. Things got worse and worse in the process. In the end, of course, as almost always with these movies, they are happy again, police are looking for Fuchs (and him they won't let get away I assume) the drama is gone and there is even a character giving birth. In a corn field. Sigh. Enough is enough really. It is especially disappointing as a father-son story because nothing connected to that felt authentic or realistic. Oooh the DJ inclusion with that 25-hour gig I almost forgot. How the young man falls unconscious there and daddy brings him back. That was painful to watch really. I think there also was a moment when the old man collapsed or was close to collapsing. Really pseudo drama of the worst kind. The more I am writing/thinking about this movie, the more obvious it gets that this is really definitely on the failure side and not just a weak film. What makes me even more sad is to see an actor like Andreas Schmidt, who is so much better than this, have this movie as one of his final credits. he died half a year after the release at a far too young age. May he rest in peace. Maybe it is just me imagining things, but I felt he did not look too healthy in here either. In any case, it is not just this film that he should not be in it, but he played such a nothing character. What a waste. Oh and what was with the random, yet, meaningful, question if her man voted for her back then? Now that came out of nowhere. Is it so tough to elaborate properly on drama and not just randomly throw it in? So pathetic what these channels are doing with billions of GEZ money that they force people to pay here in my country. Disgusting. Disgusting movie too. Highly not recommended.
For me the only question basically was if this is a weak or terrible film. Honestly, especially if we look at all the Degeto stuff, there's really many worse films out there, but this does not mean that this film here is good. It is just tolerable in comparison I assume. Annd I don't remember many good moments either. Only one kind of namely when Stötzner's and Thalbach's characters have a little banter insulting each other, but in a friendly way. After all they were a couple now. Also as for Thalbach, her mayor story went completely wrong. She seems so powerless honestly and the scene in which she offers herresignation made things even worse and was definitely not a highlight whatsoever. At least not the way it was meant to be in an emotionally self-sacrificing way. Besides, everything linked to business was not a success. The mention of Fuchs and how he wants he is an antagonist, but in the end just really one who acted as a representative for a powerful big company. Or the idea how the son thought for a while he wanted to be a farmer too and his constant back-and-forth seemed like the mind of an 18-year-old or so. So this is where the film came short in the family/drama department. In the comedy department, things did not look much better. The idea they have on how to file an application as new/young farmers was not particularly entertaining. But it was still better than the really unrealistic scenario that they run exactly into that female police officer the moment they are driving so quickly to meet the deadline. Or that it is again the one cop who is crushing on the son apparently. This was already really horrible in the opening sequence and there I felt pretty safe already that this is not going to be a good film. Things got worse and worse in the process. In the end, of course, as almost always with these movies, they are happy again, police are looking for Fuchs (and him they won't let get away I assume) the drama is gone and there is even a character giving birth. In a corn field. Sigh. Enough is enough really. It is especially disappointing as a father-son story because nothing connected to that felt authentic or realistic. Oooh the DJ inclusion with that 25-hour gig I almost forgot. How the young man falls unconscious there and daddy brings him back. That was painful to watch really. I think there also was a moment when the old man collapsed or was close to collapsing. Really pseudo drama of the worst kind. The more I am writing/thinking about this movie, the more obvious it gets that this is really definitely on the failure side and not just a weak film. What makes me even more sad is to see an actor like Andreas Schmidt, who is so much better than this, have this movie as one of his final credits. he died half a year after the release at a far too young age. May he rest in peace. Maybe it is just me imagining things, but I felt he did not look too healthy in here either. In any case, it is not just this film that he should not be in it, but he played such a nothing character. What a waste. Oh and what was with the random, yet, meaningful, question if her man voted for her back then? Now that came out of nowhere. Is it so tough to elaborate properly on drama and not just randomly throw it in? So pathetic what these channels are doing with billions of GEZ money that they force people to pay here in my country. Disgusting. Disgusting movie too. Highly not recommended.
