Beer festival

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Movie
German title Beer festival
Original title Beer festival
Country of production United States
Publishing year 2006
length 110 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
JMK 16
Rod
Director Jay Chandrasekhar
script Jay Chandrasekhar
Kevin Heffernan
Steve Lemme
Paul Soter
Erik Stolhanske
production Michael Beugg
Bill Gerber
Steve Lemme
Richard Perello
Erik Stolhanske
music Nathan Barr
camera Frank G. DeMarco
cut Lee Haxall
occupation

Bierfest is a film comedy from 2006 , created by the comedy troupe Broken Lizard ( Super Troopers , Club Mad ). The cast of this film is also joined by some internationally known actors such as Jürgen Prochnow or Donald Sutherland .

action

The two American brothers Jan and Todd Wolfhouse are supposed to fly to Munich after the death of their German grandfather to bury the urn with his ashes there. The grandfather's last wish was to find his final resting place in his hometown, at the world-famous Oktoberfest .

Instead of enjoying the Oktoberfest, the brothers trigger a fight in the beer tent and have to flee. Through a contact person who is supposed to help them bring the urn with the remains of their grandfather to their destination, the brothers get into the meeting of a centuries-old secret society that holds the annual beer festival. Participants from different nations compete against each other in various drinking games. An American team is missing, however, because the less hard-drinking Americans were never invited to the beer festival .

After the Wolfhouse brothers watch the victory of the German team (the reigning champions) over the Irish in boot drinking , they get to know the organizer of the beer festival and brewery owner Baron Wolfgang von Wolfhausen. It is her grandfather's half-brother. However, the two Americans are anything but warmly welcomed by their German relatives. They learn that their grandfather Johann stole the formula for the “best beer in the world” decades ago and brought it to the USA. Despite the allegations and to restore their honor, Jan and Todd decide to fight the Germans. They are mercilessly drunk under the table and humiliated to the utmost. They travel back to the USA, bent overhead, where they quickly make the decision to set up an American team and then compete at the beer festival again next year to pay back the Germans.

When looking for suitable team members, they recruit friends from college. Phil Krundle, a very corpulent ex-brewer who can consume large amounts of food and beer. Steve Finklestein, a Jewish scientist, is less of a gifted drinker, but has theoretical beer knowledge. Finklestein initially has little interest, but when he learns that the opponents to be beaten are "tall, blonde, German gentlemen", he is convinced. Most recently, Barry Badrinath is recruited because of his talent for drinking games. His participation creates tension as he had an affair with Todd's current wife during college days.

The team spends the next few months training, with jobs being lost and relationships falling apart. By chance, the Wolfhouse brothers come across the stolen beer recipe. Jan and Todd brew the legendary beer, which also makes the business of their German inn flourish. To provoke the Germans, they send Baron von Wolfhausen a bottle of the beer. He then travels with the entire German team to the USA to buy back the formula, which the brothers refuse.

Baron von Wolfhausen then hires a spy to copy the formula and drown Phil Krundle in a beer vat when he tries to stop her. The team mourns and considers ending the project until Jan and Todd's grandmother tells them about the family tree and mentions that the two brothers should have been the actual heirs of the brewery in Germany. When Gil Krundle, Phil's twin brother, takes the place of his dead brother, the four seem to be reunited.

With a lot of luck, Americans will gain entry to the beer festival . As expected, the German and American teams make it to the final. The Germans decide the final for themselves because of a nasty trick. The Americans then mention that the stolen recipe is not the right recipe, but rather a newly created flavor and suggest drinking a boot, using the real recipe (on the American side) and the brewery (on the German side). The German team agrees.

In the end, the Americans can win this competition by a narrow margin. The German team is booed and the Baron von Wolfhausen hands them the key to the brewery as a fair loser. At the end of the film, the American team is in Amsterdam to celebrate the victory. There they are asked by Willie Nelson to take part in a stoner tournament. So the Potfest follows .

Removed scene in the German version

A short sequence has been removed for the German version. When the Americans face the Germans again in the last scene, the Jew Finklestein is mocked by the German Otto, he looks like he has pubic hair on his head. Then he throws his kippah on the ground. In anger, Finklestein's pupils transform into a yellow Star of David.

useful information

  • The cost of producing the film was $ 17.5 million; 20,387,597 US dollars were brought in worldwide.
  • At the beginning of the film, a message is shown that the alcohol consumption depicted in the film could be fatal.
  • The film was supported by the major breweries mentioned in the film ( Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu , Radeberger , Beck’s and Guinness ).
  • Inspired Broken Lizard of the drinking games from their college years.
  • The stereotypes of the nations are completely exaggerated. The Germans are big leather suspenders , the British speak Cockney , the Irish wear green, the Canadians run around in ice hockey jerseys and the Swedish team is made up of attractive, busty blondes.
  • There are several allusions to the film Das Boot with Jürgen Prochnow (who embodies Baron von Wolfhausen in the beer festival ), which is also very well known in the English-speaking world . The Germans are sitting in a submarine in the United States, wearing a pale red light and matching uniforms, observing the situation.
  • At the beginning of the film you can see the original footage from the Munich Oktoberfest .
  • On the map of Europe that can be seen at the beginning of the film, Slovenia belongs to Austria and part of Schleswig-Holstein is missing .

Reviews

Bierfest achieved a rating of 41% from 106 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes . The consensus is: " Bierfest delivers some gags that make people laugh, but it is too long and the tempo too uneven for a uniform, functional comedy."

Christoph Petersen said at the start of the film that the beer festival was “not uninteresting”, especially for German viewers, because on the one hand you could demonstrate your self-irony and on the other hand it was “quite exciting” to see “which clichés and stereotypes your own nation had in the humor repertoire the rest of the world is represented ”. The figures of the "nasty beer baron [s]" and the "swallowing monster [s] Hansel" embodied by Jürgen Prochnow and Ralf Moeller are suitable examples. Although the film was too long at 111 minutes, “its certain moments” could not be “completely denied”.

The lexicon of international films spoke of a "level comedy that is tiring with the same predictable thigh throbbing and a permanent orgy of alcohol."

Awards

Award category receiver Result
Stinkers Bad Movie Awards 2006
Worst Supporting Actress Cloris Leachman Nominated
Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy Nominated
Most Annoying Fake Accent: Female Cloris Leachman Nominated
Alliance of Women Film Journalists 2006
EDA Special Mention Award: Hall of Shame Won

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for beer festival . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2006 (PDF; test number: 107 309 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for beer festival . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Beerfest (2006) - Box Office Mojo. In: www.boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved November 7, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Rotten Tomatoes
  5. ↑ filmstarts.de
  6. ↑ Beer festival. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ↑ IMDb . In: Stinkers Bad Movie Awards . Retrieved June 11, 2016.