"Aufschneider" is an Austrian two-part movie from 2010, so I don't think it is accurate to call it a series. It is in the German language and was written and directed by David Schalko. Co-writer is lead actors Josef Hader. If you look at the cast list in general, you will find a handful names that belong to Austria's finest in acting right now. No need to mention the names as the cast list is here on IMDb. The entire thing runs for three hours pretty much and takes us into the life of pathologist Dr. Hermann Fuhrmann and we get to witness his professional, but more so personal struggles and the women and men who have a major impact on his life. I think the "film" can easily be structured into two halves. The first half was probably better and more entertaining as a whole, while the second half had more really funny moments, but also lower lows if we are honest. The whole abduction and autopsy on the living object plot was relatively weak and unrealistic and same goes for the way they carry around that dead guy (father of a main character) all the time. The ending is difficult to categorize. I somehow did not like it for the obscenities as it just wasn't a good way to go out, but it somehow shows that the two male central characters finally bonded, which developed into a major plot point the longer it went. It's also perhaps slightly too much on the forced happy ending site if we look at realism purposes with everybody being pregnant all of a sudden and the father did not mind the friend of his daughter anymore? Why? He opposed him so strongly.
Still, this two-part mini-series somehow proves that, even if it almost a decade old already, probably more when you read this review, Austrian comedy is on a completely different level quality-wise compared to German comedy, which is truly at a relatively sad state right now. Hader really is a bit of a national treasure to Austrian film, for a long time actually, with his Brenner movies too, but also with recent stuff like the Stefan Zweig film. Here he shows us another great mix of comedy and drama, well mostly comedy in fact that he is among the best right now, but of course the script helps a great deal too, but then also he is a co-writer. Yes there are some weaker moments/developments like the ones I already mentioned, but all in all it is a pretty much every day life story with the subjects it is about. At almost 180 minutes, it managed to never drag and that is quite an achievement. For the first half, I was kinda tempted at times to give it a higher rating even, but all in all 3 out of 5 seems accurate I guess. Both parts have their strengths, but for different reasons. You wanna check this one out. Quick final note: Maybe even get subtitles if you are German native because of the occasionally heavy Austrian accents.
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