Too many fans seem to be blown away

Good idea lost in the noise

An action-packed slog

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is "Doktorspiele", a German 95-minute movie from 2014 and the writer and director is Marco Petry. If you have a bit of an interest in German films, then you possibly know his 2000 movie "Schule" Back then he was 25, now he is 40 and it is shocking to see how he apparently has not learned a thing. Unlike many, I find "Schule" a really bad film and this one here is on par in terms of quality. The subject here are teenagers, mostly boys again, who watch porn all day, masturbate over hot chicks from their class, but of course really dream of true love. Sigh. Besides Paul and Korittke, the cast includes some of Germany's more talented and known younger actors and they aren't that bad really in terms of performances. It is the script that destroys them. First of all, there were so many contradictions in the main character with how he was written. early on, he is depicted as an outsider and a bit of a nerd who lacks courage and self-confidence. But then he starts singing to his crush, the most liked girl of the entire school, in front of 100 other students? Really? Is that what he would have done? No he would have kept poking her on Facebook, maybe asked her out even, but he would not have done that. And the vomiting scene is also only to entertain the audience, has nothing to do with realism either.Yeah well, there are many other scenes that don't make sense, like the mother coming in with the new cute girl right when the main character and his boy watch porn with huge male genitals. Or that they are talking about dildos as if it was nothing and they don't even have a real connection of friendship or so. There were many scenes in this film that may entertain the audience, but you should not forget while being entertained that you also have to look for depth in the characters and for a story that is not just funny and over-the-top, but also authentic. There is nothing of all that in here. The negative deal-breaker was probably when the guy all girls crush on (played by Niewöhner, maybe the most known of the bunch) all of a sudden is turned into a homosexual by the writers. No words for that. One absurd scene and plot twist follows the next. This film is at best good enough to be called a guilty pleasure, but it has absolutely nothing to do with quality filmmaking. I also think it is pretty derogatory as to how females are depicted in here and I feel kinda sorry for the female actresses in here who had to sacrifice a bit of their dignity to appear in this one. It may be a somewhat known film now and one of the most known teen comedies of the 20th century here from Germany, but this does not shed a positive light at all at the genre. I highly recommend you stay far far away. It's like an even poorer version of the already pretty weak "American Pie" and it shows that Petry is not only stuck in time, but also has not improved at all from the really low level he started back then. Major thumbs-down.

Things in our childhood can be scarring. So much that we won't forget certain instances when the other person (perpetrator) might have already forgotten about them. Something that is big thing in this movie. The bigger thing is though, the inability to see the good thing right in front of you sometimes.And so while we do know where this is heading (or running at some point), the main characters need more conviction than that. And also you have to fill the 90 minutes somehow, don't you? It's still pretty decent, if you like your teenage comedy/dramas played out in that sort of romantic fashion.

This teenage rom-com, erm, "coming of age movie" (sounds better) is squarely aimed at a teenage market, and, let's face it, it has about as much depth as a puddle of camel urine in the desert on a blistering day. Drop-dead gorgeous young actors are pretending to be experiencing the same romantic woes of spotty little butterballs like you and me. The boys' chests are shredded and waxed, the chicks are waifish and perfectly groomed. It may not be how I remember my highschool daze, but it's certainly a lot nicer to look at. The story is simplistic (boy is after chick a, then realizes that he's always been in love with chick b) but it's well acted and has tolerable dialogues. I especially liked how the music fuses in perfectly, and how the movie manages to weave in a few modern elements along the way, e. g. one of the characters has to negotiate the sex he sees in internet porn with making love to a real girl.For girls, boys and parents, there are also a few good pointers of what is expected of girls, boys and parents these days.Curiously, the movie also uses the age-old plot where girl A who is blonde, wears the brighter make-up and "knows what she wants" is ultimately shunned in favour of girl B who is more homey and demure. It's as if the Hays Code was still in function.