"Friendship!" is a movie from five years ago which runs for 100 minutes (without the closing credits) and starts like a poor man's version of "Good Bye Lenin". Schweighöfer is maybe the biggest German movie star right now together with Schweiger and back when this was made, he was also already fairly famous. The other central character here is played by Friedrich Mücke and even if he got most of the awards recognition, he is barely known at all anymore now. Same can be said about Alicja Bachleda (looks a bit like Shakira here), the female main character in this one. She has a child from a previous relationship with Colin Farrell, but acting-wise she has almost sunk into oblivion. Anyway, back to Schweighöfer, I always thought his great success is really more thanks to charisma and recognition value than to great acting skills and I am yet to see a performance where he really wows me. This is certainly not it. The film's director is Markus Goller, maybe his most known project so far. He reunited with Schweighöfer three years later for making "Frau Ella". The writer is Oliver Ziegenbalg. He also did not have a great career yet, but he also worked again with Schweighöfer on "Russendisko" afterward.
The movie is about two young German men who make use of the Fall of the Wall by making a trip to the United States in order to meet the father of one of them. They meet a handful strange and entertaining characters (bikers, cartoon artists...) on the way including a beautiful woman which quickly results in the two risking their friendship over her. Most of the cast are Americans who play small one-scene roles, but also Gitta Schweighöfer is for example in the film. Milan Peschel (who regularly works with her son) is not this time. From the title plot, you can probably see where this is headed. The two main characters' friendship grows, but also faces challenges on their journey and it's a typical not very funny (of course the girl in the supermarket would speak German) road movie with the expected language barrier jokes and really nothing that wasn't done before. Here and there, a couple dramatic developments are included like references to people who died fleeing from the GDR into the West or the friendship struggles I mentioned earlier, but it is really mostly a comedy. Not a particularly entertaining one though. Not recommended. I did like the Silbermond song in the end though.
The movie is about two young German men who make use of the Fall of the Wall by making a trip to the United States in order to meet the father of one of them. They meet a handful strange and entertaining characters (bikers, cartoon artists...) on the way including a beautiful woman which quickly results in the two risking their friendship over her. Most of the cast are Americans who play small one-scene roles, but also Gitta Schweighöfer is for example in the film. Milan Peschel (who regularly works with her son) is not this time. From the title plot, you can probably see where this is headed. The two main characters' friendship grows, but also faces challenges on their journey and it's a typical not very funny (of course the girl in the supermarket would speak German) road movie with the expected language barrier jokes and really nothing that wasn't done before. Here and there, a couple dramatic developments are included like references to people who died fleeing from the GDR into the West or the friendship struggles I mentioned earlier, but it is really mostly a comedy. Not a particularly entertaining one though. Not recommended. I did like the Silbermond song in the end though.