This is "Buddy" and the film's description here on IMDb says it all already pretty much: "A movie in which stuff happens and time elapses." This is a film in the German language of course and it runs for slightly over 90 minutes. The writer and director is Michael Bully Herbig and this one here may be his least successful work up to this point. He also plays the title character, who is not really the main character though as the protagonist in here is played by Alexander Fehling and Herbig plays his guardian angel. More familiar faces include Mina Tander, Christian Berkel, Daniel Zillmann and Bully's longtime collaborator Rick Kavanian. Anyway, I will not say a whole lot about the story. There are some okay moments I guess, but overall it felt really unsatisfying in terms of both story-telling and the plot and the directions it takes. What I found maybe the most shocking is how bad Fehling was. I have seen him in other works and he was usually pretty solid, but here he misses completely, especially in terms of the comedic moments, but also in terms of the more dramatic scenes, even if admittedly it would have been almost impossible to make these works. Yet, he manages to be worse than Schweighöfer for example in a film that easily could have been another empty Schweighöfer comedy with a such important and relevant message delivered within all the (unfunny) comedy. But this film also shows that the protagonist is basically interchangeable in all of these, so it doesn't matter if Schweighöfer plays him or a usually more talented actor like Fehling. Bully has some really successful (especially commercially) works under his belt, even if his biggest successes go back quite a bit already now. However, this one here did not work out well at all. The airport scene towards the end was certainly one of the lowest moments of the movie. It had nothing to do with realism what happens most of the time and the cringeworthy and predictable romance part is only bearable because Tander looks surprisingly stunning in here. Overall, obviously a thumbs-down and 4 stars out of 10 is really very much on the generous side still. Do not watch. It's not better than the short sit-com starring Herbig making this film.
Review of Buddy
