Which it is. "Liebe auf vier Pfoten", which means "Love on four paws", is a German television film from 2006, so this one will have its 15th anniversary next year and it is pretty shameful that this is still shown on television after so many years. But first things first: The title implies that animals are involved and that a romance story is part of this movie too, which is both correct, still the title is as shallow, superficial and basic as it gets and could be used for thousands of other films. But actually these attributes make it the perfect fit for this movie because it is as well as shallow, superficial and basic as it gets. The director is Markus Bräutigam and I cannot say anything positive about him. His body of work is self-explanatory and shows you precisely what direction this film we have here is heading quality-wise. Deep down south indeed. Natalie Scharf is the writer and her body of work is pretty much the same as far as I can be a judge of that. Equally bad. With one exception though. Her probably most known career credit "Dschungelkind" is a really good movie and it surprises me that she worked on it with how bad everything else is that she was a part of. In contrast to her name, her writing is the exact opposite of "scharf" / "sharp". As for the cast, the first credit goes to Susanne Michel. I must say in these ARd television production, frequently at least the lead actors are somewhat famous, but I have no clue who she is and I am a massive German film buff. Says it all I suppose. I mean they don't have to be famous if they are good, actually that is even much better than the other way around (Neubauer, Ferres, Thomalla...), but Michel is neither. Some really bad moments she has here and I will get to that later. The male lead is more known. Florian Fitz is not exactly a particularly talented actor either though gently-speaking. There are two more actors I want to mention. Siegfried Rauch is perhaps the most known thanks to his time on the Traumschiff. Well, here he plays one of the biggest supporting players with a massive impact at the end, one that is as crucial as it is cringeworthy. I will get to that later. And finally, Ramona Kunze-Libnow. Stromberg cast members are always appreciated by me, but sadly I cannnot say anything about her here because her role was so minor. She has two scenes or something. Then again, this may be a good thing because everybody who had more was striggling really hard with the trashy screenplay they were given.
Okay, now let's take a look at the story and some individual scenes where this film was truly an abomination. It already starts in a truly generic manner with Fitz' character knowing that one of the people on the boat with him was right when he saw a lynx and he stands up for him when the guy gets mocked. That guy is beta 100%. Fitz is alpha as we find out more quickly than we like when one woman from the boat literally jumps him and they talk about how cute he is. Sigh. Meanwhile, back in Austria where the female protagonist is from, Michel's character does not get the appreciation she deserves from her partner and he cancels a trip with her and she goes alone eventually. This is where she meets Fitz' character. Of course, as always in these films, the two do not start on a good note, so in a realistic fashion you would think they just don't become friends even or simply never see each other again, but hey not in these movies. Here the aggression shows that they bring out strong emotions in each other I suppose. Oh boy. The female protagonist's transformation who barely can walk 100 meters in the wilderness for a lynx environmentalist and how quickly it all happens is absolutely ridiculous and not in a good way. The main antagonist (yep Gandalf, they went there, LotR makers should sue them for including this reference in such a trashy movie) is fairly ridiculous too as he likes to hunt lynxes, also the small ones and our brave heroine needs to protect them from him. Luckily, Fitz' character is there frequently to man up and stand up to Gandalf and Gandalf is impressed and walks away, whcih he did not when he was only confronted with the woman. But the most ridiculous thing here is once again the romance story. The best (or worst) example is how our female protagonist goes full bratty little girl when she searches the man's stuff and then wrongly assumes that he is/was married. "Oh no I don't wannt to stay and eat with you." "Oh no I don't want to do something in the afternoon." And what is most disgusting about that? She is the one who has a man at home. But hey, with her it is okay because it is true love with her new man and she is kind enough to immediately break up with him when the poor fella travels thousands of kilometers to come see her. Absolutely disgusting how anti-male this movie is. By the way, Michel constantly managed the impossible to make her poorly written character seem even worse with her line delivery. The scene I just mentioned is one example. But she is also not even capable of delivering really simple lines like how the food is so good and she never met a male cook this gifted before. More sexism. It felt also not authentic at all how she said it.
Luckily, Fitz is not that bad, but also far from good. He suffers a lot from how the character was written, like the constant banter. One time, she is opening up more (like in the first morning), then he opens up more and she is more distant again for no valid reason. It is all extremely embarrassing. Let's not even get started with the moment when she falls into the water and he jumps in there to save her. Crings is real. There are honestly a hundred more moments that were impossible to take from a relistic standpoint. All of a sudden, Fitz' character is Rauch's (former) son-in-law. Ooookay the world is small and so is this place apparently, but of course Fitz is such an amazing man that the old man never blamed him for what happened to his daughter. More pseudo drama dn pseudo emotion there for sure. But of course, the bad guy puts all the blame on Fitz' character. And surely Gandalf is all wrong with that. Honestly, I personally felt that this part of the story making a statement on depression is one that was actually offensive to people indeed suffering from this terrible illness and I have known some who fit the description. Absolutely disgraceful. Finally, there is the expected happy ending when Rauch's character gives Fitz' character the phone number he asked for earlier and the two lovebirds meet in Austria and there we had another prime example of really poor acting from Michel's character. Like how she performed, but also how she was written. She had a man, blamed Fitz' character wrongfully as if he was married, he travelled hundreds of kilometers for her and she still dares to play hard to get? Unreal stuff. Absolutely anti-male again. Women can do what they want in these films (because they are for female target audiences) and still always get away with it. Simply disgusting. A really nice happy ending here for me would have been if the male protagonist could actually have found a likable and honest other woman, no matter if it is a tourist or local. Okay, that is pretty much all I have to say about this film. Like I wrote, I could mention a hundred other examples of cringeworthy moment, but you get the message too if I don't. Like I said in the title of my review, the only good thing are the lynxes, but I kinda wonder with some of the behavior they showed if they gave them some medication or anything, which would be even more despicable than everything else linked to this movie. Even the female lead performance and that means something looking at how bad she was. I guess they needed the money to hire animal trainers instead of somebody better than Michel. Needless to say her character is also a mega successful lawyer. God what an amazing woman. Every male under the sun should be grateful to be on the same planet like her. However, one contributor here who was even worse than Michel (yep he managed the impossible) was score composer Joe Dachtler and he "deserves" to be called out for that. Good god the music is such a mess in this movie. The film is an abomination since minute one, admittedly certainly not only because of her portrayal. Highly not recommended. One of the production companies here is called "Theaterkunst". Yeah right. Nothing artistic to see here whatsoever. Fat thumbs-down!
Okay, now let's take a look at the story and some individual scenes where this film was truly an abomination. It already starts in a truly generic manner with Fitz' character knowing that one of the people on the boat with him was right when he saw a lynx and he stands up for him when the guy gets mocked. That guy is beta 100%. Fitz is alpha as we find out more quickly than we like when one woman from the boat literally jumps him and they talk about how cute he is. Sigh. Meanwhile, back in Austria where the female protagonist is from, Michel's character does not get the appreciation she deserves from her partner and he cancels a trip with her and she goes alone eventually. This is where she meets Fitz' character. Of course, as always in these films, the two do not start on a good note, so in a realistic fashion you would think they just don't become friends even or simply never see each other again, but hey not in these movies. Here the aggression shows that they bring out strong emotions in each other I suppose. Oh boy. The female protagonist's transformation who barely can walk 100 meters in the wilderness for a lynx environmentalist and how quickly it all happens is absolutely ridiculous and not in a good way. The main antagonist (yep Gandalf, they went there, LotR makers should sue them for including this reference in such a trashy movie) is fairly ridiculous too as he likes to hunt lynxes, also the small ones and our brave heroine needs to protect them from him. Luckily, Fitz' character is there frequently to man up and stand up to Gandalf and Gandalf is impressed and walks away, whcih he did not when he was only confronted with the woman. But the most ridiculous thing here is once again the romance story. The best (or worst) example is how our female protagonist goes full bratty little girl when she searches the man's stuff and then wrongly assumes that he is/was married. "Oh no I don't wannt to stay and eat with you." "Oh no I don't want to do something in the afternoon." And what is most disgusting about that? She is the one who has a man at home. But hey, with her it is okay because it is true love with her new man and she is kind enough to immediately break up with him when the poor fella travels thousands of kilometers to come see her. Absolutely disgusting how anti-male this movie is. By the way, Michel constantly managed the impossible to make her poorly written character seem even worse with her line delivery. The scene I just mentioned is one example. But she is also not even capable of delivering really simple lines like how the food is so good and she never met a male cook this gifted before. More sexism. It felt also not authentic at all how she said it.
Luckily, Fitz is not that bad, but also far from good. He suffers a lot from how the character was written, like the constant banter. One time, she is opening up more (like in the first morning), then he opens up more and she is more distant again for no valid reason. It is all extremely embarrassing. Let's not even get started with the moment when she falls into the water and he jumps in there to save her. Crings is real. There are honestly a hundred more moments that were impossible to take from a relistic standpoint. All of a sudden, Fitz' character is Rauch's (former) son-in-law. Ooookay the world is small and so is this place apparently, but of course Fitz is such an amazing man that the old man never blamed him for what happened to his daughter. More pseudo drama dn pseudo emotion there for sure. But of course, the bad guy puts all the blame on Fitz' character. And surely Gandalf is all wrong with that. Honestly, I personally felt that this part of the story making a statement on depression is one that was actually offensive to people indeed suffering from this terrible illness and I have known some who fit the description. Absolutely disgraceful. Finally, there is the expected happy ending when Rauch's character gives Fitz' character the phone number he asked for earlier and the two lovebirds meet in Austria and there we had another prime example of really poor acting from Michel's character. Like how she performed, but also how she was written. She had a man, blamed Fitz' character wrongfully as if he was married, he travelled hundreds of kilometers for her and she still dares to play hard to get? Unreal stuff. Absolutely anti-male again. Women can do what they want in these films (because they are for female target audiences) and still always get away with it. Simply disgusting. A really nice happy ending here for me would have been if the male protagonist could actually have found a likable and honest other woman, no matter if it is a tourist or local. Okay, that is pretty much all I have to say about this film. Like I wrote, I could mention a hundred other examples of cringeworthy moment, but you get the message too if I don't. Like I said in the title of my review, the only good thing are the lynxes, but I kinda wonder with some of the behavior they showed if they gave them some medication or anything, which would be even more despicable than everything else linked to this movie. Even the female lead performance and that means something looking at how bad she was. I guess they needed the money to hire animal trainers instead of somebody better than Michel. Needless to say her character is also a mega successful lawyer. God what an amazing woman. Every male under the sun should be grateful to be on the same planet like her. However, one contributor here who was even worse than Michel (yep he managed the impossible) was score composer Joe Dachtler and he "deserves" to be called out for that. Good god the music is such a mess in this movie. The film is an abomination since minute one, admittedly certainly not only because of her portrayal. Highly not recommended. One of the production companies here is called "Theaterkunst". Yeah right. Nothing artistic to see here whatsoever. Fat thumbs-down!