"Der Doktor und der liebe Sohn" (means "The Doctor and the dear son") or "Viele Kühe und ein schwarzes Schaf" (means "Four cows and a black sheep") is a new German movie and I would say that both title choices are not exactly high-quality. Now it says on imdb that this is a 2019 movie and I am not sure where and when it was shown already, but from what I know this premiered on television tonight, so unless maybe for a few select audiences, this is a 2020 release. Ot runs for 1.5 hours and was directed by Austrian filmmaker Matthias Steurer, who is really experienced and prolific looking at his body of work, but I must say there are also many films to be found in this list that are not exactly high-quality. The screenplay is by Volker Krappen and he is nowhere near Steurer's level of experience, even if he is far from a rookie too. Maybe it would be a bit harsh to say you can replace the "k" with a "c" in his title and then you know what to expect (and also a bit exaggerated), but real quality projects he has not worked on so far either. This movie here is no exception. I must say given the fact that it aired on the most prestigious slot in German television, I am fairly baffled that the cast, even the lead roles, does not includes anybody even close to being a big name. I guess they intended to take the route to go for likable unknown (well, not entirely unknown) actors instead. This could have worked nicely out if they had invested more in the script then, but this is also not the case. So they give us neither: no famous faces, no good story. The outcome is just disappointing from almost every perspective. The father reminded me of a younger mix between Fred Melamed and Bruno Ganz in terms of his looks, while the mother resembled Steffi Kühnert a bit. Both did not convince me although I must say that they were clearly hurt by the screenplay. Even the most talented actors could not have made this film work I'm afraid. At least not turn it into a really fine film.
The story is justg too bad. It starts already with the idea of the father having his arm in plaster in order to make sure their son comes back and stays for a while to help with urgent matters. And when he finally finds out it is all just a charade, they continue with this story that now the father should not tell the mother that the son knows. They actually really include this garbage until almost the end. Another major issue here is that they really wanted us to like the characters and depict them as likable yet flawed. The boy well I just cannot come up with anything likable about him, except maybe that he will be a good dad and seems to love his partner. But what an incompetent schmuck. The mother who says that the father is the one to blame for the plaster cast idea while it was 100% her idea. And I guess we should feel sympathy for her with that strange Africa campaign idea? And finally the dad, who cheated on his wife and blindly accepts that arm in plaster idea no matter how stupid it may be. Of course, especially with that cheating reference, we still get a completely unrealistic happy ending with which all the truths are out finally and everybody is relieved and happy with each other, so we, errr. I mean the simple-minded audience members (and I hope you are not one of them) are satisfied once the closing credits roll in. Of course, as the film progresses there are also bad stories about pregnancy (also a reference to the unauthentic happy ending), maybe entering a relationship with somebody else (really charming by the mother to push her son like that) and about one/the animal(s) at the countryside suffering from a disease and it is a bit of father-son conflict who is right about what disease that is. This results in one of the most cringeworthy moments of the film when the son says something like "I was wrong and everybody is happy about it." There are more examples for the fact that this film definitely would have needed better focus and talent when it comes to dialogue writing, or story writing in general. The only question that stays before I finish my review is the one if this was a weak or really horrible movie and as you see by giving it 2 stars out of 5 (or 4 out of 10), I am still going with the former, even if it was a close call. In any case, this gets a thumbs-down from me and I do not recommend checking it out. It is absolutely disgraceful that ARD forces almost every German to pay them so they can produce low-quality films like this one here. Tough to come up with anything positive about this one, maybe Anne-Marie Waldeck is pretty attractive.
The story is justg too bad. It starts already with the idea of the father having his arm in plaster in order to make sure their son comes back and stays for a while to help with urgent matters. And when he finally finds out it is all just a charade, they continue with this story that now the father should not tell the mother that the son knows. They actually really include this garbage until almost the end. Another major issue here is that they really wanted us to like the characters and depict them as likable yet flawed. The boy well I just cannot come up with anything likable about him, except maybe that he will be a good dad and seems to love his partner. But what an incompetent schmuck. The mother who says that the father is the one to blame for the plaster cast idea while it was 100% her idea. And I guess we should feel sympathy for her with that strange Africa campaign idea? And finally the dad, who cheated on his wife and blindly accepts that arm in plaster idea no matter how stupid it may be. Of course, especially with that cheating reference, we still get a completely unrealistic happy ending with which all the truths are out finally and everybody is relieved and happy with each other, so we, errr. I mean the simple-minded audience members (and I hope you are not one of them) are satisfied once the closing credits roll in. Of course, as the film progresses there are also bad stories about pregnancy (also a reference to the unauthentic happy ending), maybe entering a relationship with somebody else (really charming by the mother to push her son like that) and about one/the animal(s) at the countryside suffering from a disease and it is a bit of father-son conflict who is right about what disease that is. This results in one of the most cringeworthy moments of the film when the son says something like "I was wrong and everybody is happy about it." There are more examples for the fact that this film definitely would have needed better focus and talent when it comes to dialogue writing, or story writing in general. The only question that stays before I finish my review is the one if this was a weak or really horrible movie and as you see by giving it 2 stars out of 5 (or 4 out of 10), I am still going with the former, even if it was a close call. In any case, this gets a thumbs-down from me and I do not recommend checking it out. It is absolutely disgraceful that ARD forces almost every German to pay them so they can produce low-quality films like this one here. Tough to come up with anything positive about this one, maybe Anne-Marie Waldeck is pretty attractive.
