Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Where is Fred?" is a German film from almost 10 years ago starring Til Schweiger, Alexandra Maria Lara, Jürgen Vogel and some more well-known actors, at least in Germany. The story is about a man, who ends up accidentally being perceived as disabled by the general public when he tries to catch a ball for his future wife's son. The film's director is Anno Saul. You may have heard of his films "Die Tür" or "Kebab Connection" and he directed Martina Gedeck and Jessica Schwarz in the past already and many more. The film is written by Bora Dagtekin ("Türkisch für Anfänger", "Fack ju, Göhte"). He used a script from an American writer duo that was behind the "Despicable Me" movies and "The Lorax". The American version of "Wo ist Fred?" was never made though in contrast to the German.Even before the plot really develops, there are already quite a few references that this film will have a lot to do with disability, for example how Fred almost drives over a disabled early on, or how Kurt Krömer's character criticizes a building site for not being handicapped accessible. One of the main problems for me was that I found the love interest to Vogel's character simply more interesting than the one to Schweiger's. but that's just personal preference. I liked some of the supporting performances too. The initial love interest for Fred was truly one of the funny highlights with her psycho son and Christoph Maria Herbst delivers as always of course too. His fake attack fit the film nicely. A real one may have been too serious for a comedy movie. Also it was nice to see my favorite "No Angel" in a very small role. Honorable mentions to Gode Benedix (works a lot with Schweiger) and Martin Brambach (one of my favs). Shame the two only play very minor characters. Still I felt the movie could have been kept at 90 minutes instead of clearly over 100 and, without some of the weaker scenes, not much would have been lost. Maybe this applies to when Schweiger invents a twin brother and constantly switches between characters. This has been done better in "Hannah Montana: The Movie" actually. The funniest moment for me though was when he comes as the wrong role to the woman with the evil son and she asks him if he completely lost it now. The ending is sadly as predictable as it's cheesy. The whole love confession scene in the basketball stadium was truly cringeworthy.All in all, it is a decent comedy and I would recommend it to those with an interest in German cinema. However, those who are easily offended when it comes to jokes about disabled people may want to stay away as the humor is occasionally a bit rough here.

Christian Heynk Alexandra Maria Lara: A very beautiful and enticing woman, but not a good actress. In all the films I've seen her in, she appears to me as the exact same character. Whether it be in THE DOWNFALL, NACKT, VOM SUCHEN UND FINDEN DER LIEBE and now WO IST FRED! She always is (plays?) the young, good-hearted woman, who is a little naive and doesn't know how to handle the things happening to her. She disposes of a repertoire of probably five different facial expressions that she works with abundantly. I personally have a hard time believing that she could play a mysterious and slightly obnoxious character because it just isn't in here. So she's typecast as the nice girl next door, which she is, but, once again, she ain't up to snuff when it comes to acting. Til Schweiger: Same thing! The film: Downright stupid. As it was an American movie it would have been a great role for Adam Sandler who I don't like either. I wasn't offended by the fact that this is a film with handicapped people in it, I just thought that the jokes resulting from this weren't funny at all. I chuckled twice or three times but when I was halfway through it, I was just bored and annoyed and wanted this flick to end.

offenes_meer As has been said before, German citizens don't always think too much of German comedy films. Too often these are VERY obvious, blatant, superficial etc. - you name it. Seems we have a different culture here, if you compare to films like Dumb and Dumber, Jay and Silent Bob, Jim Carey stuff etc. you will find that in Germany this kind of film is more or less restricted to the age 12 to 16 where you will want to laugh and not think about plot lines, stringency of characters and story etc. So, let's leave aside a number of flaws in the plot and some not very credible twists. Sitting in the cinema, this film actually makes you roll of your chair a couple of times and has some really good gags - most of them drawing on ridiculous situations and confrontations. Although handicapped persons play quite a role (sometimes wondered, which were actors and which actually handicapped ..) they are neither being made fun of, nor exploited. Rather, some concern for their situation is raised. The thing that saves this film is the actors. Alexandra Maria Lara is more beautiful than ever and will make male viewers shrink in their seats in awe. Christoph Maria Herbst (Maria btw. can be a male or female second name in German) offers a wild and extremely convincing role as a wheelchair-confined basket ball fan (stay on for the snippet that comes up after the first credits at the end of the film!). Including one of the best dialogues I have seen acted in a long time: Herbst, having hurt himself badly is pensively picking a glass splinter from his shoulder when Denise asks 'are you hurt?' and he replies matter-of-factedly 'how come you ask?' not even looking at her. Till Schweiger has been bashed quite a bit in Germany - which seems 'normal' with any actor having too much success. Jealousy, I'd say. It can be said, that he is not too much of a character actor and mostly 'sells' his good looks. In this film he actually does offer a fair performance. Playing the grumbly guy with a bad conscience fits him well. I've never heard of neither the director nor the script author, but maybe we will be seeing some new quality work in German cinema soon?

trixi_sunshine Well, I read that the plot is based on an American script (the most obvious sign of that is that it is about basketball, no one really cares about it in Germany) but they withdrew because they considered it too politically incorrect. But having seen some of the Farrelly Brothers' movies, I really wonder why. Although the subject of handicapped persons and how to treat them is not sufficiently dealt with it contains a few laughs. Once more I wonder how Til Schweiger of all people could become so famous, definitely the worst part of the crew, once more. Must be his looks. But the others compensate for it, especially the little fat kid who wants to have the basketball. What makes this film worthwhile is the cast consisting of Jürgen Vogel who usually excels in more serious roles and Christoph Maria Herbst who embodies a real handicapped person and a real basketball aficionado. Alexandra Maria Lara looks good too, granted. It would be pointless to give away the plot because you'll figure it out after 5 minutes.