66/67 (2009) Reviews

• Tries to be wild and uncompromising, but comes fairly short

  Horst_In_Translation2018-02-20

  "66/67" is a German movie from 2009, so this one is almost a decade old now and it runs for almost 2 hours. It is probably the most known career effort by Jan-Christoph Glaser and Carsten Ludwig who worked on this one together in both writing and directing like on several other works. The cast includes actors like Hinrichs, Yardim, Bach, Giese, Mehmet who are somewhat known here in Germany today still. And I also like Bach and especially Hinrichs, so I hoped their inclusion could have me like this film too, but nope sadly not. The script is just not good enough and the massive runtime results in the film dragging on several occasions. Quite a pity. I also would not call the film a sports movie. Yes the central characters are all united by the fact that they like the German football team Eintracht Braunchweig, but other than that sports/football references are really rare. It is more of a character study instead as we find out what matters in the protagonists' lives, see their interactions with each other, but also with the women in their lives, find out about what they do in their free time etc. and we have one guy who likes to go to sex parties with other gay people where the goal is to infect yourself with STDs, especially HIV, so yes this is a pretty heavy film given the material. Violence also plays a big part on several occasions. But sadly, I never had the impression here that I was really watching authentic characters that could exist in real life the way they were depicted. Tough to say what the exact reason may be, but in my opinion, it is more the writing than the acting here and I would not blame the cast particularly for the many moments where the film felt as if it lacked focus. But it did and I have basically zero interest to ever see it again. Not even a positive recommendation for other Braunschweig fans and my suggestion is to watch something else instead. Thumbs down.