Rabbit Without Ears (2007)

When a director stars in his own movie, it can sometimes be a recipe for disaster. They just give all the screen time to themselves and it becomes a self indulgent mess like in case of "Dances with Wolves". If done correctly they are able to use the actor within themselves to their full potential as they know their own limits.

This is the latter case. Til Schweiger again plays a cynical guy who seems to immune to love or affection. He has given a wonderful performance and done an admirable job in directing as well. He reprises the character he plays in Barfuss, which also has a very similar feel to this film. I saw him in this movie first so I like it much more. Of course Barfuss is almost as good, and I recommend it if you have liked this movie.

Also the scenes with Jürgen Vogel were hilarious.

Fmovies: Ludo, A womanizer tabloid journalist must work at a daycare center in order to avoid prison. There he meets Anna, a shy, clumsy woman with glasses who seems to be afraid of men and sex. Ludo and Anna know each other from back in primary school, when he used to bully her with the rest of the more attractive children because of her braces and her glasses.

He hasn't changed that much in his treatment and opinion of women, so it comes as no surprise that she eventually falls for him. Because that's what happens when painfully shy girls with glasses meet attractive but annoyingly vain and superficial womanizers. (And to quote Homer Simpson, THAT was sarcasm).

But hey, he's good with children, so it's all right in the end.

The writer, director, producer and star of this vanity project apparently decided to take a shot at making a stupid, formulaic, romantic comedy, without taking in consideration that even stupid, formulaic, romantic comedies follow some rules of dramatic construction, such as three-dimensional characters (jeez, or at least BI-dimensional ones), causality, sustained conflict and... well, funny jokes.

(A couple of jokes in the movie I found funny, that much I will admit.)

Since this was apparently a box office success, I guess they must have done something right, and I have absolutely no taste. Well, I can live with that.

I was fooled by a cute trailer into renting this thing and sat through this painfully unfunny movie. Two hours of my life that will never come back.

In the past months I read and heard a lot of positive things about this movie. But I just could not imagine that a movie made by Til Schweiger could be watchable at all. So after more and more positive comments that got to my ears, I dediced to watch it. It was a mistake! What a bad, predictable movie. Once more, terrible acting by Til Schweiger. Dialogues that aren't funny at all, slapstick that doesn't even deserve the name slapstick! The script is full of mistakes and some scenes just don't make sense.

Okay, Til Schweiger has delivered much worse products in his career. "Keinohrhasen" its not the worst thing he did. But anyway, please don't waste your time with this movie. People who like cheap and brainless popcorn-entertainment will be amused. The rest should better keep their hands off this DVD

Rabbit Without Ears fmovies. This is once again typical German big city-curious characters romance story. Til Schweiger plays Ludo Dekker a libertine who is condemned to make 600 hours of social work in a children's home. There works Anna (Nora Tschirner). In their childhood Dekker was terrible to Anna. So far the starting constellation. But it's a comedy with happy ending. The beauty of such films is to observe the slight variations from one story to another and how the extravagant figures come along and end up together to make the perfect match. I understand that it's a very special kind of humor that doesn't suite everybody. Nevertheless I liked this big city story very much. Funy slapstick situations, nice dialogs, sweet plot, wonderful characters, good acting, and splendid Berlin as a fantastic supporting actor.

In writer-director-star Til Schweiger's second directorial outing, "Rabbit Without Ears" (following a semi-refreshing "Barefoot"), he plays yet another hedonistic Teutonic cad spun round by an unlikely, socially awkward girl. It's an overly familiar romantic comedy that trades on European sensibilities for a distinctively American atmosphere.

Just as in "Barefoot" (a love story of a self-involved cad and a depressively sweet escapee from a psych hospital with an aversion to footwear), Schweiger uses the same sort of emotional modulation – with a touch of transparent manipulation and a fair amount of feel-good montages – to present its apparent mainstream appeal of the adorable differences between men and women. You could transplant everything here from a Frankfurt to New York setting while a Matthew McConaughey could easily play Schweiger's dapper hunk and a Sandra Bullock could slot in as his female co-star Nora Tschirner – the latter being a dead ringer for the Hollywood star.

So what's a rabbit without ears but just another flaw to be overcome? Schweiger plays Ludo, a paparazzi reporter who sees his work and women as one venture. Till, he messes up and gets 300 hours of community service at a local day-care facility run by an ex-classmate, the frumpily attractive Anna (played by Tschirner) who still harbours an improbable resentment of Ludo and his teasing over 20 years ago.

But what's even more dubious is how easily these set-ups and facades drop to accommodate the inevitability of its central pairing. Ludo finds his redemption being surrounded by enamoured toddlers while Anna falls deeply into a void of self-esteem, which is to say into the arms of the obliviously receptive Ludo. It could just as readily be named "Men Are Dogs and the Women Who Love Them".

Schweiger lazily allows the strings to be seen. There are scenes so ludicrously over the top and undeveloped that questions about the writing and editing have to be raised. Characters cease to act like they were written and anachronistic scenes mar emotional pay-offs that could have been promising given the film's punchy performances and frequently wry dialogue.

Sex is fundamental to these upwardly mobile Germans, but the utter puerility of sex-faces and loud restaurant reveals aside, the understated view on sexual politics is particularly lurid. The strongly defined angular features of Schweiger augments an ability to convey quick nods of sympathetic posturing – an incredibly useful tool that belies Ludo's selfish actions and blurs the perception beyond acceptable behaviour and the resulting consequences of its main pairing. Schweiger needs to rediscover the sweet emotionality of his previous film and disregard the rank superficiality of this film.

I gotta admit, up till now I have neither been a big fan of Til Schweiger nor of German movies in general. But I changed my mind after watching Keinohrhasen. I simply loved it. Yes, it is completely predictable (what romantic comedy isn't?) and yes, there are a few inconsistencies and even some unnecessary scenes - but who cares?! The chemistry between Til and Nora is - surprisingly - just great, the story is classic, but so beautiful and I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard in any movie.

All in all, even though I'm not a big romantic, I was, to my own surprise, somehow very touched by this movie and I enjoyed it very much, I laughed, I cried, I sympathized - the perfect entertainment. I will definitely buy it on DVD.