I've been really eager to see Men to Kiss, hoping it might finally be a German comedy I could enjoy. Nope. I'm starting to think - after at least two dozen tries - that I just never will get German humor.
To me it always seems heavy-handed, loud, grossly exaggerated, totally lacking in subtlety, intelligence, gentleness, depth and warmth. It's like The Three Stooges.
So if you love The Three Stooges and can't imagine anything funnier than The Three Stooges as German gays in love, then this is the movie for you; it's not for me.
Unfortunately, it's awful in every other way too. Every character is like a cartoon character, a shallow overblown caricature of a human being, with nothing inside its hard and garish shell. The direction is cartoonish too, with an extreme close-up of someone's mugging face in nearly every shot.
There is NO credibility or chemistry in the relationship between Ernst and Tobias, which is the core of the movie. They're not even credible human beings. If I can't believe that those two love each other, or even that they're real, how can I care what happens to them? I don't.
Early in the movie I started thinking the actors and even their characters seemed very familiar, and I finally realized that many of them (actors AND their characters, and even some of the sets) were in an earlier movie called Alex and Leo, which I also hated for exactly the same reasons.
Someone named Andre Schneider wrote (and produced, and acted in) both movies, so I'm going to add his name to my surprisingly short list of people whose work I will avoid like the plague from now on.
But if you saw and loved Alex and Leo, you doubtless will love this, its apparent sequel, too. Or, as I said, if the idea of the Three Stooges as gay Germans in love sends you rolling in the floor, you must not let this gem pass you by.
