Real guys (movie)

Movie
Original title	Real men
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	1996
length	100 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Rolf silver
script	Rolf Silber, ; Rudolf Bergmann
production	Gerd Huber , ; Renate Seefeldt
music	Peter W. Schmitt
camera	Jürgen Herrmann
cut	Inez Regnier
occupation
	Christoph M. Ohrt : Christoph Schwenk; Carin C. Tietze : Helen; Tim Bergmann : Edgar; Oliver Stokowski : Mike; Rudolf Kowalski : Kallenbach; Dieter Brandecker : Drawbar; Daniela Ziegler : Iris; Ina Weisse : Karin; Andreas Pietschmann : Marco; Heinz Werner Kraehkamp : Moped driver; Antonio Putignano : Pizza delivery boy;

Echte Kerle is a German comedy film by Rolf Silber from 1996. For the actors Christoph M. Ohrt and Tim Bergmann , the film, which was shown very successfully in German cinemas, was a springboard to a career in film and television.

action

The Frankfurt police chief Christoph Panning, even though the calls himself a "dormouse" and maintains a penchant for teddy bears, is a true macho. After being thrown out of the shared apartment by his fiancée, Christoph drowns his grief in alcohol in a nightclub. To his great horror, he wakes up the next morning naked in the bed of the gay car mechanic Edgar. Unsure about whether and what could have happened last night, he immediately sought the runway. But since he cannot find any other accommodation in a hurry and his car is stolen, he temporarily moves in with Edgar. He immediately fell in love with Christoph and is now making fun of raising Christoph with his homophobia .

Meanwhile, the intelligent and attractive policewoman Helen is assigned to Christoph's team. Together with colleague Mike, they are supposed to arrest a gang of car smugglers. When Helen wants to celebrate her debut in a bar, she and Mike run into Christoph and Edgar by chance. Edgar, who actually earns his living by hairdressing stolen cars, learns that he and Christoph, of all people, have found a police officer as a subtenant.

After the police officers Kallenbach and Deichsel repeatedly see Christoph with Edgar on the street, the rumor finally spreads that Christoph is gay. He already doubts his masculinity himself, which, however, also gives him new insights and makes him more sensitive towards his fellow men.

Even Helen, who fell in love with Christoph and briefly gets closer to him, is soon convinced that he only loves men. Colleague Mike, in turn, suspects that Helen is drawn to her own gender after seeing her with a woman who is only Helen's caring sister Karin. Edgar's jealous ex-boyfriend Marco causes further confusion, who comes into the police's field of vision for pushing cars and threatens to lead the law enforcement officers to Edgar.

When Christoph and Helen finally wait alone from an empty apartment with binoculars and cameras to catch the car thieves in the act, they can no longer hide their feelings for one another. They sleep together and ultimately miss the opportunity to arrest the car thieves. After Christoph and Helen found each other, in the end, surprisingly, it is Mike who turns out to be gay and ensures that his friend Edgar is not found out.

background

The night skyline of Frankfurt

The outdoor shots, which lasted from August 8th to September 2nd, 1995, took place in Frankfurt am Main . In order to bring out the night skyline of Frankfurt in the best possible way for a short scene , the makers of the film wrote to all the offices of the skyscraper and asked the owners to turn on the lights in the offices for one night. From September 4 to 25, 1995, the interior shots, such as the scenes in Edgar's apartment, were filmed in Cologne .

Echte Kerle was finally premiered in Germany on May 30, 1996 and grossed around 6.5 million euros at the German box office with 1.2 million visitors.

Reviews

" Real guys have a lightness, a cool melancholy that you usually find in French cinema."

- Thilo Wydra , epd film

“ Real Guys is an amusing, clever film about the complex rules of human relationships. [...] Here no emotion is slammed by punchlines, no figure is reduced to a template. Edgar is not the almost asexual model gay man in his mannerisms . [...] Rolf Silber takes his characters seriously - and jokes. And that makes Echte Kerle one of the most beautiful new German comedies. "

- Cinema

"Thanks to funny dialogues and believable confusion of love, an amusing comedy was made."

- TV movie

"Bieder staged and largely boringly illustrated relationship comedy, which, apart from the all too brittle female lead, is carried by witty actors and successful puns, but does not condense into an all-round successful cinema experience."

- Lexicon of international film

"What initially reminds of Wortmann's Moving Man in terms of subject matter is modeled by director Rolf Silber into a warm-hearted, brisk and smartly staged story, which does not achieve its wit at the expense of the entanglements between gays and straight people, but rather through humorous and sincere confrontation with both parties Prejudices and macho attitudes. [...] In the end everyone is somehow a little gay, and everyone, including the viewer, gets their piece of happiness. "

- Focus: film