"Am Kap der Liebe", which means "At the cape of love", is a German television film from 2004, so this one is already easily over 15 years old, maybe over 20 already depending on when you come here and checkm out this title pags and review of mine. One can only hope there will not be too many reasons in the future and this film is not shown anymore, but the fact that it was on the other day despite its relatively old age is embarrassing enough already. This is an ARD Degeto production, but I suppose this is almost self-explanatory here and everybod with a bit of knowledge about German television knows what that means. You must expect the worst here and probably it will still be worse than you expected. Let's start with the basics: Just like the other Degeto films, this one here runs for slightly under 1.5 hours. The director is Udo Witte, who has been active in the industry since the mid80s already, so almost 20 years when he made this one and he is still not retired it seems as he is approaching his 70th birthday. His most recent work is from 2019 and that would be an Inga Lindström film, so you can say that he really saved the wors for last as he worked on many of these Inga Lindström films in fact. But his other stuff isn't really any better: a great deal of SOKO, Edel & Starck, several other anti-male Degeto films etc. In short, his body of work is nothing to be proud of and it is safe to say that despite, or because of, his long career here in Germany he is not even remotely talented. This film we have here is the perfect piece of evidence. As for the writers Drews and Jendrich, the former has never written a film before this one and the latter was also not experienced. What do we have with them? More SOKO, Medicopter 117, Alarm für Cobra 11... Enough said. In other words, they are just as bad as their director, just not as prolific, and they will probably never come up with a quality achievement from the creativity perspective.
In terms of the cast, there are a handful familiar faces here fur sure. The lead is Sigmar Solbach. He was almost 60 already when he made this and you can do the math and see how old he is now. His female co-lead Claudine Wilde is over two decades younger. As for Solbach, he is mostly remembered for playing Dr. Stefan Frank, the man that women can trust, and this Stefan Frank was a gynecologist. Really the lowest of low doctor drama entertainment here from German television. Says it all about Solbach's career if this is still his trademark show nowadays. As for Wilde, I do not really wannt to go considerably into detail about the shows and films she has appeared in, but trust me, there was little to no quality to find there either. Check out her body of work if you care. So it is fitting really. The people who made this film have no talent, it's Degeto, the actors have no talent either. An absolute joke of a movie that was really doomed since day one and certainly not a good joke. The late Siegfried Rauch that many remember from Traumschiff plays one of the biggest supporting characters and it is actually pretty sad to see how low he had to go to at least make some money in terms of the quality of his later projects. The man was on Patton I mean. Like Günther Maria Halmer level, only a bit older even. Ralph Herforth, who kinda plays the main antagonist here, has also seen better days honestly. He has some recognition value at least, but a good actor he isn't either. And finally, Rolf Hoppe. He was (or maybe still is) one of the most known GDR actors out there and I hope he rests in peace. Breaks my heart a bit to see him in nonsense like this film here honestly. Luckily, he was only in it during the beginning and the tragic fate for his character was actually a good thing somehow because I honestly would have found it really depressing to see him in this nonsense from beginning to end.
Now let's take a look at the story and at why this is such an abysmal movie overall. There are many examples. Something these films frequently have in common is that they take place at a region of the planet that is often far away, but at least pretty stunning. And they hope that thanks to this impact in terms of beautiful nature the viewers will not realize how poor the writing and literally every single production value in these films are. For me it is impossible to ignore though. Besides, these films also always have in common that the nature recordings are also as uninspired as it gets, so go watch a proper documentary if you care about that. These films are mostly for women, which makes me applaud every female who sees through this charade. They take the most simple approaches to that. The female protagonist is always likable and a tough girl who has been through something. Here she is a single mother of course too and working in the (almost) wilderness with animals to send them back into their natural habitat. Great for the actress to be this close to koalas as a consequence etc. But she was never credible at all. The women in these films also always get away with treating the men really poorly. The pseudo drama, especially at the end when something gets unvcovered and the female protagonist keeps rambling that Solbach's character only used her was unwatchably bad. But it's all forgiven, no matter how hard she is jumping at conclusions here. I mean her cool chubby friend with the really inspired (and successful) way to fix broken cars told her, so it must be the perfect truth. Why even ask the man about it, just scream insults etc.
In addition to that, the woman of course also has another suitor, so we do not forget how desirable she is. I disagree by the way. Strongly. This would be Herforth's character here and the two meet near the end to discuss business and drink a glass of wine and of course he is hitting on her immediately and of course at the exact same time Solbach's main character is nearby and sees the two and wrongly assumes there is something romantic between them. Sure thing. Great timing. Of course, when the man think so he is a complete fool and imcapable of realizing how the woman is so faithful and kind that she wants nobody other than him, but if the woman makes a wrong assumption (like the one I just mentioned), it is all accurate and makes completely sense and everybody would have thought there is something fishy going on. Oh my, these films are so manipulative and shoddy at the same time. How can somebody be really dumb enough to fall for anti-male nonsense like this. The writers should be ashamed. Besides, the key background story here is our protagonist finding out that his father may not be who he thinks he is as the actual father (Hoppe) writes him a letter briefly before his death and elaborates on how he is the genetic dad. Sure thing, happens to all of us. Not just that you fall for the closest colleague of your dad immediately afterwards. Nothing made sense here, be it the elaboration on why he did not write the letter earlier, be it the cheap ways in how the "previous" father collaborates with the bad guy obviously, be it everything about the female protagonist's son etc. With the latter I mean how he was written, what he had to say, how he treated his mother's new man. Like he really hates him and is jealous and boom after some deep emotional exchange or so he all of a sudden realizes that Solbach's character is a good guy and that his mother deserves him and that he deserves his mother. Such nonsense. Already cringeworthy enough with the bird sounds.
What else? I will definitely run into the character limit here before being able to truly mention all the reasons and scenes where this film sucked. Of course, this also applies to the 100% forced and unauthentic happy ending these films always have. So it's the key story where it is a terrible watch, but also those small moments. One that stayed in the mind for all the wrong reasons is when Herforth's character is about to make a business deal that is absolutely not legal and his partner (from a bank or something) initially refuses to join in on the collaboration, is very determined in doing so, and boom after Herfurth's character says something like how he is gonna find somebody else then, the initially determined guy all of a sudden agrees within a second to become his partner. What a joke honestly. Oh, by the way, the dialogues and what the characters are saying is also incredibly self-important and it is painful to watch how this movie dares to take itself so seriously from beginning to end. The writers not having the talent to make these lines work is another story. You can say in their favors that not even the greatest actors could have made these work, which is probably true, but then again also not an excuse because the actors deserve no respect for even agreeing to be a part of this entire thing.
Oh and the film here is set in Australia, not in South Africa or so as you could have guessed from the word "Kap"/"Cape" in the original title. The international titles sound a bit different and actually they initially planned to go with a different title here for the German original as well, one that is just as bad and cringeworthy, only for other reasons. There is more focus on danger and action with that one than with the one the eventually picked where it is about nothing but romance. I feel sorry for those men who are dating women (or even married to them) that see something sweet in this movie. But also the other way around of course. No man should see this as a decent film. Finally, the cast also includes a handful international (probably Australian) actors they most likely picked up there for minor supporting parts. Those were dubbed as bad as it gets, so the film is also an abomination from the audio perspective. The music is constantly blasting to make sure we see the dramatic relevance that the filmmakers and actors did not manage to deliver. Not making things any better basically. 100% skip.
In terms of the cast, there are a handful familiar faces here fur sure. The lead is Sigmar Solbach. He was almost 60 already when he made this and you can do the math and see how old he is now. His female co-lead Claudine Wilde is over two decades younger. As for Solbach, he is mostly remembered for playing Dr. Stefan Frank, the man that women can trust, and this Stefan Frank was a gynecologist. Really the lowest of low doctor drama entertainment here from German television. Says it all about Solbach's career if this is still his trademark show nowadays. As for Wilde, I do not really wannt to go considerably into detail about the shows and films she has appeared in, but trust me, there was little to no quality to find there either. Check out her body of work if you care. So it is fitting really. The people who made this film have no talent, it's Degeto, the actors have no talent either. An absolute joke of a movie that was really doomed since day one and certainly not a good joke. The late Siegfried Rauch that many remember from Traumschiff plays one of the biggest supporting characters and it is actually pretty sad to see how low he had to go to at least make some money in terms of the quality of his later projects. The man was on Patton I mean. Like Günther Maria Halmer level, only a bit older even. Ralph Herforth, who kinda plays the main antagonist here, has also seen better days honestly. He has some recognition value at least, but a good actor he isn't either. And finally, Rolf Hoppe. He was (or maybe still is) one of the most known GDR actors out there and I hope he rests in peace. Breaks my heart a bit to see him in nonsense like this film here honestly. Luckily, he was only in it during the beginning and the tragic fate for his character was actually a good thing somehow because I honestly would have found it really depressing to see him in this nonsense from beginning to end.
Now let's take a look at the story and at why this is such an abysmal movie overall. There are many examples. Something these films frequently have in common is that they take place at a region of the planet that is often far away, but at least pretty stunning. And they hope that thanks to this impact in terms of beautiful nature the viewers will not realize how poor the writing and literally every single production value in these films are. For me it is impossible to ignore though. Besides, these films also always have in common that the nature recordings are also as uninspired as it gets, so go watch a proper documentary if you care about that. These films are mostly for women, which makes me applaud every female who sees through this charade. They take the most simple approaches to that. The female protagonist is always likable and a tough girl who has been through something. Here she is a single mother of course too and working in the (almost) wilderness with animals to send them back into their natural habitat. Great for the actress to be this close to koalas as a consequence etc. But she was never credible at all. The women in these films also always get away with treating the men really poorly. The pseudo drama, especially at the end when something gets unvcovered and the female protagonist keeps rambling that Solbach's character only used her was unwatchably bad. But it's all forgiven, no matter how hard she is jumping at conclusions here. I mean her cool chubby friend with the really inspired (and successful) way to fix broken cars told her, so it must be the perfect truth. Why even ask the man about it, just scream insults etc.
In addition to that, the woman of course also has another suitor, so we do not forget how desirable she is. I disagree by the way. Strongly. This would be Herforth's character here and the two meet near the end to discuss business and drink a glass of wine and of course he is hitting on her immediately and of course at the exact same time Solbach's main character is nearby and sees the two and wrongly assumes there is something romantic between them. Sure thing. Great timing. Of course, when the man think so he is a complete fool and imcapable of realizing how the woman is so faithful and kind that she wants nobody other than him, but if the woman makes a wrong assumption (like the one I just mentioned), it is all accurate and makes completely sense and everybody would have thought there is something fishy going on. Oh my, these films are so manipulative and shoddy at the same time. How can somebody be really dumb enough to fall for anti-male nonsense like this. The writers should be ashamed. Besides, the key background story here is our protagonist finding out that his father may not be who he thinks he is as the actual father (Hoppe) writes him a letter briefly before his death and elaborates on how he is the genetic dad. Sure thing, happens to all of us. Not just that you fall for the closest colleague of your dad immediately afterwards. Nothing made sense here, be it the elaboration on why he did not write the letter earlier, be it the cheap ways in how the "previous" father collaborates with the bad guy obviously, be it everything about the female protagonist's son etc. With the latter I mean how he was written, what he had to say, how he treated his mother's new man. Like he really hates him and is jealous and boom after some deep emotional exchange or so he all of a sudden realizes that Solbach's character is a good guy and that his mother deserves him and that he deserves his mother. Such nonsense. Already cringeworthy enough with the bird sounds.
What else? I will definitely run into the character limit here before being able to truly mention all the reasons and scenes where this film sucked. Of course, this also applies to the 100% forced and unauthentic happy ending these films always have. So it's the key story where it is a terrible watch, but also those small moments. One that stayed in the mind for all the wrong reasons is when Herforth's character is about to make a business deal that is absolutely not legal and his partner (from a bank or something) initially refuses to join in on the collaboration, is very determined in doing so, and boom after Herfurth's character says something like how he is gonna find somebody else then, the initially determined guy all of a sudden agrees within a second to become his partner. What a joke honestly. Oh, by the way, the dialogues and what the characters are saying is also incredibly self-important and it is painful to watch how this movie dares to take itself so seriously from beginning to end. The writers not having the talent to make these lines work is another story. You can say in their favors that not even the greatest actors could have made these work, which is probably true, but then again also not an excuse because the actors deserve no respect for even agreeing to be a part of this entire thing.
Oh and the film here is set in Australia, not in South Africa or so as you could have guessed from the word "Kap"/"Cape" in the original title. The international titles sound a bit different and actually they initially planned to go with a different title here for the German original as well, one that is just as bad and cringeworthy, only for other reasons. There is more focus on danger and action with that one than with the one the eventually picked where it is about nothing but romance. I feel sorry for those men who are dating women (or even married to them) that see something sweet in this movie. But also the other way around of course. No man should see this as a decent film. Finally, the cast also includes a handful international (probably Australian) actors they most likely picked up there for minor supporting parts. Those were dubbed as bad as it gets, so the film is also an abomination from the audio perspective. The music is constantly blasting to make sure we see the dramatic relevance that the filmmakers and actors did not manage to deliver. Not making things any better basically. 100% skip.
