Macho Man (2015) Online

The idea of the plot is based on making fun of stereotypes concerning cultural differences between Germans with a German heritage and Germans with a Turkish migrant background. This pale story has been told so countless many times before and is regarding the refugee crisis absolutely not contemporary but stale and completely redundant.

The story goes something like this: A "nerdy", unathletic and scruffy guy working in a advertising agency meets a hot Turkish host on his holiday in Turkey. Back in Germany they try to maintain a functioning relationship but her poorly integrated family is not approving of him. The nerdy guy then tries to gain the respect of her racist father by behaving like a massive chauvinist jerk which of course leads to him losing her.

It's an awful plot with absolutely no sensitivity for puns or comedic moments at all. There are many opportunities for at least some minor funny jokes but literally all of them are left unexploited.

The worst about the movie are the incomprehensible lousy sound effects used in situations where the director doubtlessly hallucinates about the presence of humor in his piece of barbaric art. "Macho Maaan" or "Ahaaa" sung by an overly dramatic male voice ruins this in any case absolutely atrocious movie to the fullest.

I really don't want to start to talk about the acting because there isn't such thing as acting observable. A bunch of pedestrians randomly picked up from a street could have pulled this off better. We went into this movie because of Christian Ulmen, who WAS a promising actor playing vibrant roles in mostly intelligent movies. But in this case it's a FRAUD. It's a shame and baffles me that nobody ever in the whole process of the making screamed "STOP! This movie is a gargantuan pile of garbage and a giant waste of money and other resources, we have to end this now!"

Christian Ulmen lost all of his credibility as an actor and decent human by accepting this role and the blood money he was paid for this disaster.

But if you go and watch this waste of memory space with the approach of laughing about something so bad that it's actually good again you may could have some fun.

"Macho Man" is a German movie from last year (2015) that runs for 100 minutes approximately and was directed by Christof Wahl, who is mostly known for co-directing a Schweiger/Kavanian comedy in the past. The script comes from a duo of writers, which I find pretty worrying as at least one of the two must have seen what a mess they are creating. Anyway, first things first. The lead actor here is Christian Ulmen and I personally like him as a comedian and liked some of his stuff in the past ("Mein neuer Freund"), but as an actor I am just not convinced sadly by him and this film here does not change that. I somehow feel as if he is kinda playing extremely similar characters in all his films and does not have that much range. His female co-lead is Aylin Tezel, who is a bit of a less talented Sibel Kekilli for me. But still, I do not really blame her for her portrayal here as the character is so badly written that it was virtually impossible to make it work. Supporting performances come from Samuel Finzi, Axel Stein, Peter Prager and others. Ulmen's real life wife Collien Fernandes has a cameo.

This film is about a man who falls in love with a Turkish woman and as he grows closer with her, he also meets her family, which results in him strangely adapting to their Turkish lifestyle and becoming an unlikable macho, thus the title reference I guess. Now this is probably the weirdest development in this movie. I personally did not feel ever that this was a realistic character transformation that could have happened like this in real life. And same can be said about the way how he transforms back so quickly towards the end, so they could make sure we get the totally expected happy ending between the two. German movies about foreign cultures here in Germany have become an institution right now. There are so so many and everybody with an interest in German film can immediately name one or two I think, maybe even five. But this one here offers nothing of value when it comes to this approach. It is not funny, it is not smart and the comedy is very underwhelming, which is pretty disappointing as Ulmen has much more talent than the screen writers let him show us here. And sometimes, the comedy is actually pretty offensive when it tries to be edgy, but stays completely ineffective and embarrassing for example on a joke about Anne Frank.

This film here is the epitome of a Matthias Schweighöfer comedy, even if the main character is played by Ulmen. At least Schweighöfer's mother is on board, so it still kinda fits. It tries to be dramatic, include a lesson for the main character and audience and even make a difference dramatically at times. But it all rings very false and the low-point of the entire thing is maybe when Ulmen's character eventually makes a statement as we should not change ourselves into somebody that we aren't because there is somebody out there who loves us exactly the way we are. Eurgh! There are more example of this, but I will not list them. If you really decide to watch this film (which you should not!), then you will know what I mean. I am not really sure how successful this film was at the box office, but I do know that comedies with this fairly low ambitious approach manage to lure many people into theaters these days, so maybe we, the audience, are the reason they still get made. It's time to overthink our viewing patterns. Start with my recommendation here to stay far far away from this piece of garbage. Yes there were moments when I was tempted to give this film a 4/10, but it really wasn't that many and overall, I am convinced that a rating of 4 or the even higher rating here on IMDb would be way too much. Highly not recommended. The script is terrible, everything else is weak.

Actually the movie does have a lot of clichés, which is something you'd expect, especially from a comedy. It still works somehow, especially because of the main actors. Though it is a bit strange that Aylin is playing a character called Aylin. If you knew her real name that is of course, which I did.

Apart from that, there is also a lot of breaking, but in a way you'd expect the movie to break with prejudices. Some of the jokes do work and some don't. Ulmen is playing both "parts" with detail. Even if you may think that the transformation might be a tad too much, it's working in the overall context of the movie. Not to mention that it is necessary for the overall dramatic this builds up ...

The likable softy Daniel ( Christian Ulmen ) finds his sympathetic Princess. But the brides Turkish family wants a real man. Softy Daniel tries personally change and ends almost as Macho Man.

Hammer sound. Beautiful pictures. Sympathetic actors who act with credible emotions. That's rare in German comedies.

If you like Christian Ulman, the movie is just perfect for you. He is convincing in the conversion to Mach Man. Ulman as Macho Man takes pleasure in his new person. "Fremdschämen" about this really gives you many smiles.

Worth seeing. Less mainstream than expected. The environment of clichés in which the film takes place is shown in very detail. Nice. Social differences are accepted. But together we can laugh about it - beautiful.