Kopf oder Zahl (2009) Reviews

• Botched reunion, but not too surprising

  Horst_In_Translation2017-03-29

  "Kopf oder Zahl" (meaning "Heads or Tails") is a German movie from 2009, so only two more years and this one will be a decade old. Honestly though, the number of votes here on IMDb tells us that this film has almost been forgotten despite a pretty decent cast, at least in terms of the names. But there is a "but", actually a really big one. You may read the names Richter, Hoenig, Rudolf and Semmelrogge and realize yes these are all actors who appeared in "Das Boot", still one of the most known German films of all time. But honestly, time has not been too friendly to these guys. Not only did they never manage to top the success of "Das Boot" or at least tie it, but the films they have been in were pretty garbage for the most part int he last decades and their performances weren't any better. I may be a bit biased here as I never thought "Das Boot" deserved an ounce of the popularity it received (despite liking Jürgen Prochnow), but time has proved that most of the cast members have been really overrated for a long time. So it is pretty fitting that, in this one here, they act next to the likes of Saskia Valencia, Mark Keller, Jana Pallaske and German rap musicians Tyron Rickets and Afrob, all people who hopefully have bigger strengths in life than acting. They may have charisma and maybe also recognition value with their physicality, but range is something they do not have or at least not a lot. The directors here are Benjamin Eicher and Timo Joh. Mayer, both also part of the quartet of writers who created the script for this one. You may say that initially there were scenes that had a slight similarity to what Tarantino and Guy Ritchie might have done, but only in their weakest works and if they possessed 10% of the talent they actually possess. Eicher and Mayer are more known for their animal documentaries to be honest, so looking at what they did here it was quite a change and it did not bode well. So maybe stay with the wildlife guys. This 90-minute movie here (and this already includes credits, don't think it's 100 minutes long as it says here on IMDb) is probably at its weakest when it also takes itself seriously, like some of the scenes about parenthood. When it doesn't, it at least has some guilty pleasure potentially like in some of the Ralf Richter scenes. But it is never ever quality filmmaking or story-telling at any point. What do we learn from this? Heinz Hoenig can do a pretty solid Eastern European accent if he has to. And maybe, because he was not really given the material to do anything else in here, he also did not screw up and maybe the best thing about this film. The lows are too low though and the highs far from high enough. This gets a thumbs-down and I don#t recommend checking it out to anybody.