"Das Gewinnerlos" is a German television movie from 2015. It runs for 1.5 hours approximately and the director is Patrick Winczewski while the screenplay was written by Edda Leesch. Both are pretty experienced when it comes to German small screen releases and actually for both of them this includes acting. They have acted in movies for a long time, but neither appears in this one. However, they are also experienced when it comes to those areas or production that they had an impact on for this movie here. Sadly, experience does not necessarily result in quality. The outcome here is not particularly good, but I'll get to that later. First I still want to mention one thing that surprises me, namely that apparently three Spanish writers worked on the core story here. I thought maybe the original was a Spanish movie and this one here is a remake, but I could not find anything in the bodies of work from said writers that confirms this theory. Then again, I probably should not care too much. The cast is so-so I'd say. Not too bad, not too great for a small screen release. The likes of Matthias Habich, Angela Winkler, Lisa Kreuzer and Peter Franke (as well as maybe two or three others) are actors that you could have come across in other projects if you are not totally clueless when it comes to German films. By the way, their combined effort here will have it's fifth anniversary in less than a month. No clue if this was one reason why it aired again yesterday on television. As you can see from the number of votes here on imdb, this is far from a famous film. However, obscurity does not mean there is no chance for awards and Angela Winkler is the best example here as she won a pretty prestigious award for her supporting performance. I do not share the praise though and I think that it had more to do with her famous name (she has been acting for a long time, also with very successful filmmakers) than with her performance. I found she added very little overall and certainly did not elevate the weak material. Then again, I am not the biggest fan of her for sure.
As for the story, you could say that Habich's character is in the center the mostg although there is not one undisputable lead in here. It's an ensemble performance. There are also mseveral key stories and the plot and how it keeps jumping back and forth definitely feels a bit on the wild side gently-speaking. This also includes the big lottery win included in the film's title, which basically means literally translated "the winning lottery ticket". This is strange enough though I mean this lottery ticket alone made for enough coincidence for 4 movies at least and yet they shoved more into the audience's faces. Habich /who despite being okay most of the time in the films he appears in has a horrible role selection, many real stinkers in his body of work) was okay most of the time and it was not his fault that the outcome here was not good. Sometimes he was a bit of fun even and him sitting quietly on the sofa and the camera showing him (and a friend) was already enough to be entertaining for a brief moment with the characters' face expressions. Or when they are having a hangover after celebrating the win and there is a little implication we could think the main character is dead. But really only for a moment. There are so many aspects in here that are not elaborated on in a good enough manner that it is impossible for me to give this movie a positive recommendation. This also includes the pretty shoddy pseudo emotional story line very early on with the father who does not want to move out of his home, but his daughter wants him to before she leaves with her man for America. There you have another example of exaggerated coincidence that it all has to happen at this point when she is about to go, which adds more fake tension. Still, even if most oof the actors were not particularly good, I would not really blame them. The script they were given is one that probably Hollywood's finest could not have turned into a quality movie. One character is only in this film it feels so they could give him a story about his homosexuality and this could have been such a crucial part of the movie, but it was so poorly executed from beginning to end really that it is almost offensive to people actually in the closet. The best example is how when he talks to several other (elderly) people about it, they know or they do not care. But of course, this subject is already enough for the likes of ARD and politically correct white knights sucking it up without caring for proper elaboration. The fact that it is a subject here is enough and that is just embarrassing. People should aim for quality, but clearly the ones in here, especially the writer(s) did not possess the talent to create a convincing story. One final example and with that we go back to the lottery ticket. Of course they lose it. Sigh. I don't think I need to go into detail there. This movie gets a thumbs-down from me. It stays successfully above failure territory (and looking at everything else shown on German television, this is already a bit of a success), but also never even comes close to being a good watch. Skip.
As for the story, you could say that Habich's character is in the center the mostg although there is not one undisputable lead in here. It's an ensemble performance. There are also mseveral key stories and the plot and how it keeps jumping back and forth definitely feels a bit on the wild side gently-speaking. This also includes the big lottery win included in the film's title, which basically means literally translated "the winning lottery ticket". This is strange enough though I mean this lottery ticket alone made for enough coincidence for 4 movies at least and yet they shoved more into the audience's faces. Habich /who despite being okay most of the time in the films he appears in has a horrible role selection, many real stinkers in his body of work) was okay most of the time and it was not his fault that the outcome here was not good. Sometimes he was a bit of fun even and him sitting quietly on the sofa and the camera showing him (and a friend) was already enough to be entertaining for a brief moment with the characters' face expressions. Or when they are having a hangover after celebrating the win and there is a little implication we could think the main character is dead. But really only for a moment. There are so many aspects in here that are not elaborated on in a good enough manner that it is impossible for me to give this movie a positive recommendation. This also includes the pretty shoddy pseudo emotional story line very early on with the father who does not want to move out of his home, but his daughter wants him to before she leaves with her man for America. There you have another example of exaggerated coincidence that it all has to happen at this point when she is about to go, which adds more fake tension. Still, even if most oof the actors were not particularly good, I would not really blame them. The script they were given is one that probably Hollywood's finest could not have turned into a quality movie. One character is only in this film it feels so they could give him a story about his homosexuality and this could have been such a crucial part of the movie, but it was so poorly executed from beginning to end really that it is almost offensive to people actually in the closet. The best example is how when he talks to several other (elderly) people about it, they know or they do not care. But of course, this subject is already enough for the likes of ARD and politically correct white knights sucking it up without caring for proper elaboration. The fact that it is a subject here is enough and that is just embarrassing. People should aim for quality, but clearly the ones in here, especially the writer(s) did not possess the talent to create a convincing story. One final example and with that we go back to the lottery ticket. Of course they lose it. Sigh. I don't think I need to go into detail there. This movie gets a thumbs-down from me. It stays successfully above failure territory (and looking at everything else shown on German television, this is already a bit of a success), but also never even comes close to being a good watch. Skip.
