Good acting, good set decoration, interesting plot idea with many possibilities to explore questions about identity, authenticity, friendship and success - therefore the 4 stars.
But the result is flavorless and more and more boring. Most of the characters are flat, there are logical holes and the story avoids several times giving important information about what has really happened.
2 Reviews
Not a good film, but Bezzel elevated the material
Horst_In_Translation20 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
"Wenn schon falsch, dann richtig!" or "Echte Bauern singen besser" or "Farmer Rockstar" is a German television movie that premiered in September 2013, so it is a bit over half a year old now, still pretty fresh. It runs for 1.5 hours (just like they usually do) and the director is Holger Haase and the writer is Arndt Stüwe. Maybe you have heard the name of the director before, probably not, but he is a bit more famous than his writer here, but if we take a look at both their bodies of work, we find stuff like "Alarm für Cobra 11 - Die Autobahnpolizei", "Männertag", "You Are Wanted" and a Katie Fforde adaptation, which effortlessly makes clear that you should not have any expectations when it comes to this film here. People will not make a jump in quality from rock bottom to high up and actually taking all this into consideration, I'd say the outcome here is still better than expected. This mostly has to do with the fact that the main character, the one you see on the photo here on imdb, is played by Sebastian Bezzel. I kinda like his crime comedy movies with regional charm and these certainly resulted in him getting cast more frequently for German small screen releases. This is just one of several examples. I would not say I am a fan, but they could have picked somebody worse for sure for this one. Still, at the same time, my personal preference may actually have an effect on me that I liked this film more than I should have and I cannot entirely disagree here. That I still only give it two stars out of five makes obvious how weak the screenplay and story really are. There are many examples why this was a weak outcome in terms of the plot. Just take everything romance-related. It is all bad, all horrible. From the first moment on, you know there is going to be some kind of romantic twist when it comes to the struggling musician and the girl with the dark hair and dark eyes, despite how much he insults her early on. Ridiculous. It's also nothing to be proud of in terms of female character writing and I know people (mostly for stupid reasons) are examining this kind of character writing more than usual these days. Let's not go into detail about that. Also as an extension when she gets into that dangerous situation and he kinda saves her and takes her back and is praise for that was really really poorly executed from any perspective. But also when it comes to the other female character, this movie is nothing to be proud of. I think it was Susanne Bormann's character there. She is definitely among the more known cast members this film has to offer with some of the stuff she has appeared in.
Away from the females just, it's weak in terms of character writing and plot riting in general, also when the action includes exclusively male characters. Just take the key plot here with how it turns all out at the end. So ridiculous and completely unrealistic and could never happen like this in real life. And at the same time the film tries obviously to depict realistic characters like me and you, so they actually wnat us to believe that things could turn out like this. Don't fall for this scam and yes I have to call it that because the channel this was made for (and also the channels showing the film) forces us to pay them money and actually not just very little money. Really force us. The outcome is a disgrace for that. You pay to receive garbage and you cannot really do anything against it. Unreal that GEZ still exists. But this is a whole different story. The fact that keeps this film from becoming a complete disaster (even if it occasionally does) is that here and there it does not take itself too seriously. Bezzel's approach there helps and he held the nonsense story surprisingly well together. Already take the idea that his two characters here look so similar that there is only one explanation, namely that they are twins. But they are not. They are supposed to be unrelated. Seriously? Who is going to believe this? And also that the look-alike show up the exact same time they need him because the actual artist is struggling hard with addiction. I kinda feel bad calling anything or anybody in this film an artist or artistic. The music we hear in-between was also pretty horrible. Admittedly, the really sad thing about this one is that people who are less talented than the fictitious singer in this movie (and he surely isn't very talented) have big careers here in Germany, so it is not entirely unrealistic. At the same time, it could be that they actually wanted us to think that these songs weren't good because the singer was struggling, but my guess is that the writer here was too simple to actually make such a suggestion and wanted us to believe these songs were good. Which they defenitely weren't. To be fair, the one at the stage in the end was decent, but even this is really unrealistic because the "wrong singer" all of a sudden has the talent to pleae a big crowd although he never stood on a stage before? Come on, please. As for Bezzel, it may have helped him and the entire project that this farmer/countryside background (his character, well one of his, coming from small villages) is something that applies to several of his films, also the aforementioned entertaining crime comedies, so he sort of had good practice and it pays off somehow. I think this film still turned out weaker than it should have. Bormann, Knizka, Ferydoni and maybe two or three others (not counting Bezzel) are actors who have what it needs, if given the right screenplay, to come up with a much better film than this. But with this writer-director pair, it just isn't possible. Also really shoddy cast list here. Fits in well with the (lack of quality) of the overall outcome. Watch something else instead.
Away from the females just, it's weak in terms of character writing and plot riting in general, also when the action includes exclusively male characters. Just take the key plot here with how it turns all out at the end. So ridiculous and completely unrealistic and could never happen like this in real life. And at the same time the film tries obviously to depict realistic characters like me and you, so they actually wnat us to believe that things could turn out like this. Don't fall for this scam and yes I have to call it that because the channel this was made for (and also the channels showing the film) forces us to pay them money and actually not just very little money. Really force us. The outcome is a disgrace for that. You pay to receive garbage and you cannot really do anything against it. Unreal that GEZ still exists. But this is a whole different story. The fact that keeps this film from becoming a complete disaster (even if it occasionally does) is that here and there it does not take itself too seriously. Bezzel's approach there helps and he held the nonsense story surprisingly well together. Already take the idea that his two characters here look so similar that there is only one explanation, namely that they are twins. But they are not. They are supposed to be unrelated. Seriously? Who is going to believe this? And also that the look-alike show up the exact same time they need him because the actual artist is struggling hard with addiction. I kinda feel bad calling anything or anybody in this film an artist or artistic. The music we hear in-between was also pretty horrible. Admittedly, the really sad thing about this one is that people who are less talented than the fictitious singer in this movie (and he surely isn't very talented) have big careers here in Germany, so it is not entirely unrealistic. At the same time, it could be that they actually wanted us to think that these songs weren't good because the singer was struggling, but my guess is that the writer here was too simple to actually make such a suggestion and wanted us to believe these songs were good. Which they defenitely weren't. To be fair, the one at the stage in the end was decent, but even this is really unrealistic because the "wrong singer" all of a sudden has the talent to pleae a big crowd although he never stood on a stage before? Come on, please. As for Bezzel, it may have helped him and the entire project that this farmer/countryside background (his character, well one of his, coming from small villages) is something that applies to several of his films, also the aforementioned entertaining crime comedies, so he sort of had good practice and it pays off somehow. I think this film still turned out weaker than it should have. Bormann, Knizka, Ferydoni and maybe two or three others (not counting Bezzel) are actors who have what it needs, if given the right screenplay, to come up with a much better film than this. But with this writer-director pair, it just isn't possible. Also really shoddy cast list here. Fits in well with the (lack of quality) of the overall outcome. Watch something else instead.
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