Knallharte Jungs (2002) Reviews

• German "comedy" reaches a new low.

  Pedro-372002-03-14

  This sequel to the mildly amusing "American Pie"-rip-off "Harte Jungs" in which the teenage lead talks to his penis is one of the worst things (I dare not call it a movie) I've encountered this year. I don't mind that it's sexist, juvenile or offensive - a lot of teenage sex comedies are like that and as long as it's amusing, I'm OK with that. No, I mind that this is a utterly unfunny insult to anyone's taste, humor and intelligence. When superb actor Axel Milberg is degraded into a drivelling joke, I felt sick. But when a 99-year-old woman starts cleaning a toilet (she previously and very acustically made dirty) with a metallic dildo, I knew that German comedy has reached a new all time low. Do I have to mention that the brown stuff flies into her face afterwards? Well, you get the point. This is not "daring humor", it's just utter crap. Any redeeming things? No. Rebecca Mosselman is really cute but I felt sorry for her being in that "movie". And Axel Stein delivers his dialogue rather naturally (compared to the other, highly artificially speaking actors) and has most of the 3 or 4 funny scenes in the "movie". Most of them happen during his adventures with the female hockey team. He dressed up as a woman to join them. You might think this is a stupid old joke. Well, it's telling, that in this film, it's the funniest thing that happens... Bottom line: Avoid this by all means. If a lot of people go and see this, I might have to watch another sequel. I'd not survive that!! Rating: 1/10

• not worth watching

  pogo-162006-09-08

  I was going to watch this one with my floor mates the other day. We were perfectly aware that this movie would not bring any intellectual challenges, so we thought we were prepared. With this in mind it is surprising that we didn't even make it through the first 20 minutes. We were shocked how bad this movie turned out to be. The story, the acting, the characters, even the jokes were 1-dimensional and boring. I can only speak for the first 20 minutes,but for what I've seen this movie is not worth watching. If you'd like to see a good German comedy, I'd recommend a movie called "Im Juli". Of course these two movies play in two different leagues.

• Why was this movie made?

  GreenBowTie2002-10-20

  I saw this movie on an exchange trip to Germany. Before the movie started, a couple of us Americans were talking to a German girl in the exchange program about the movie. She said she found American Pie to be "cute" and this movie to be disgusting. We figured she just probably had different standards than us (we didn't see how American Pie could be cute), but after we saw this we saw how horribly wrong we were. American Pie was rather cute, in a goofy sort of way, and Knallharte Jungs was revolting. With no apparent storyline, irritating characters, and jokes about things like attempted date rape, a talking penis, and an old lady plunging a diarrhea-filled toilet with a vibrator, I felt violated and abused. I look back on the memory now with tears in my eyes. For shame, Mr. Henman, for shame.

• what? a good time? here you have it!

  Big-Phil2002-10-27

  I see this movie as the thing it´s designed to be: a goofy, teenish movie full of jokes about sex, boys dressed as girls, poo and some other things. some people might find that offensive and absolute not funny. I for myself see this movie as a cool film to watch and have a good laugh doin that! the actors are good casted(especially the girls)....rebecca mosselmann looks hot! and axel stein just got the german comedy award for his role as Red Bull/Wanda. in my opinion totally right! to summarize the movie: catch the DVD if you´re looking for a funny movie without a great meaning to it! forget it if you have something against this kind of humour!

• Trampolin jumping the shark

  Horst_In_Translation2017-02-08

  "Knallharte Jungs" is a German movie from 2002 and the sequel to the very successful (at the box office, not with critics) film "Harte Jungs". The writer and director is Granz Henman and he was also the writer of the very first. And while his effort there was at least occasionally bearable, this one here isn't at all. It seems that Rothemund (the director of the first) understood that a sequel may be a bad idea and abandoned the project. On an equally sad note, this movie here is slightly longer than the first. Tobias Schenke and Axel Stein return, but Schenke's character's best friend / love interest from the first film has equally disappeared just like Mina Tander's character as well. Instead, his new woman of choice is played by Diana Amft. If you have seen Amft in "Mädchen, Mädchen" or anything, you will know that she is not a talented actress at all, yet next to Schenke she really shines despite being very mediocre again too. And Axel Stein, who is dressed in drag for almost the entire movie, is a true revelation next to the unbearably bad Rebecca Mosselmann. No surprise nobody heard from her again after this film. But maybe I am also doing some of the actors injustice here because one of the main reasons (next to their lack of talent) is the horrible script. At least you could say about the first film that luckily it never took itself serious, but this one here does with Schenke's character constantly talking about his true love while he almost gets raped by nymphomaniac nurses and aunts, all of them pretty hot which of course was intended to lighten up the situation. Oh yeah, his talking dick is back again as well and adds nothing to the film once again. This is one of the few aspects that did not get considerably worse here because it already really sucked in the original movie. On a more positive note, I can see somehow why Stein was a big breakthrough artist back then at that point as he occasionally managed the impossible, namely making Henman's script funny on 2 or 3 occasions. I also liked how it is not revealed eventually that he was his sister in drag. Oh well, these girls were really retarded to not see it but yeah.. Besides that, the film uses more stereotypes and embarrassingly bad sex jokes (melted ice cream on pants for example) than Mario Barth. And the production values are very weak too in general. We hear that the protagonist should take care of a 99-year-old woman and she looks no day older than 65 and the actress who played her was still much younger. We get cameos by Axel Milberg, Bully Herbig and Christine Neubauer, who for a rare occasions is not the one ruining a movie. This one does it all by itself. There should never have been made a second film and probably there should not have been made a first film either. Impressive how they managed to make this one even worse looking at how weak the original already was. Stay far far away.