Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Director Sherry Horman and writer Benedikt Gollhardt have not introduced any new ideas in 'Männer wie wir' ('Guys and Balls') - team sports dependent on camaraderie, outsiders getting the last laugh, coming out stories with sports as a background, homophobia to the max, and stereotypical depictions of gay men - but they have created a movie that has enough charm to get past all of the above. It is that kind of movie that makes you groan 'Oh no, not again', but then ends up making you feel warm and sentimental despite yourself! Ecki (a very charismatic and hunky Maximilian Brückner) has grown up in a rural town, the son of a baker, and a committed soccer fan since childhood. Now as a young man he is sought after by his girlfriend Cordula (Melody Sitta) but is unable to respond to her advances. As the popular goalie on his soccer team he is hailed until quite by accident he is discovered in warm embrace with a teammate: the teammate and the team trash him for being gay, his father (Dietmar Bär) throws him out of the house, and poor Ecki departs for Dortmund to live with his sister, swearing to his team that he will return with a gay soccer team to defeat the homophobic jerks.Ecki and his sister Susanne (Lisa Potthoff) pair off to find gay team players and find them they do, in the strangest places (this is where the film sags due to the stereotypes the director elected to cast). Ecki creates a solid team, falls in love with his sister's co-worker nurse Sven (David Rott) and despite some minor setbacks, the team boards the bus to return to Ecki's hometown to face off the enemy home team. Yes, it ends as you would imagine, but along the way the writer and director manage to make a few healthy comments about being true to yourself and your convictions.Despite everything predictable about the film, the actors - Brückner, Roth, Potthoff, Bär, Carlo Ljubek, Saskia Vester et al - bring a homespun credibility to the story. This is one of those films that requires forgiving its shortcomings to just enjoy the ride.

The protagonists are a lovable but geeky batch of characters. The antagonists are a group of generally unlikable bully sorts. The underdogs inevitably win in some symbolic battle to prove they're not losers after all. That's the Slobs vs. Snobs picture in a nutshell. They're generally light on character development and focus overwhelmingly on letting the audience know that it's okay to be geeky/ugly/fat/skinny/smelly/some other unpopular characteristic. While those messages rarely reach those that could use the lesson the films can often be a bit of fun with heroes that are easy to root for and bad guys just as easy to hate. Shelly Horman's new Guys and Balls (Männer wie wir) is a decent one. The slobs are a group of homosexual soccer players and the snobs are a team of rude, homophobic Fußballspielers in this screwball comedy.Ecki (Maximilian Brückner) is the goalie for a small German town's soccer team. Already in the doghouse for a controversial play at the end of the last game he's totally ostracized when he makes a drunken pass at a decidedly heterosexual teammate. His longtime nemesis Udo (Carlo Lubjek) takes charge and get him kicked off the team and his parents are shocked by the news of their son's sexual orientation. Parting words between the team and their ex- goalie bring a challenge; for Ecki to field a team of homosexual for a match against his old team. He heads to the big city to find his sister in the hopes that she can help him find some gay footballers. Wouldn't ya' know it he finds a group of unlikely heroes. The group includes a trio of leather-clad bikers, a very feminine Turkish deli worker, an extremely masculine lesbian, a closet construction worker and a couple of Brazilian players. The broad spectrum of gay personality types, including stereotypes, could come off as amateur caricatures in lesser hands but Horman & crew do a fine job of compensating for the characters' lack of depth. The biker trio especially is shown with a light humor that comes at the expense of common perceptions of lifestyle leather queens rather than at the expense of the characters themselves. The dearth of character development isn't normally that big of a problem. Only when unnecessary melodrama is introduced does it intrude. Scenes between Rudolf (Christian Berkel) and his son tend to ring a bit false because we don't know much about either of them and the sudden conflict between Ecki's parents seems a bit out of place.In the city Ecki finds not only his sister (Lisa Pothoff) but also Sven (David Rott), a handsome hospital worker with looks and soccer skills to spare. As Ecki, with the help of a drunken former soccer star for a coach, works to make the team ready for the match he also must work to put his relationship with his parents back together. Will the team be better than everyone expected? Will Ecki's parents be able to transcend their prejudices? The answers are never really in doubt just as in any film of this type.That a film is a predictable by-the-numbers formula doesn't necessarily mean it's no good. There is a reason that formula exist, they sometimes work. A fun, light comedy that's a bit stupid and a little romantic, Guys and Balls is an example of one that does.

Let's face the facts - there is one dominant and popular area in Western society where homosexuality is still an absolute no-no, where it simply doesn't exist (officially of course) : And this is....? Yes, it's football. Excitement and fun for billions of people all around the globe. But although roughly 5% of mankind can be considered as gay or at least bisexual no professional player ever had his public coming-out. (But statistically speaking in every team there must be at least one..which would mean a minimum of 18-20 in the German Bundesliga alone)... This is the sociological background any critic should take into account before criticizing "Männer wie wir" too harsh. Yes, I agree, in some parts this film is a bit stereotypical, but the important and optimistic message counts more than its occasional lack of sophisticated and complex characterization. Maybe this is also one of the reasons why many heterosexuals (even the liberal and educated type) feel uneasy about this film. They simply don't want gays to enter one their last retreats of pure and sweaty straight manhood. And the notion that some of these queers might even turn out to be adequate opponents on the pitch (as it happened in "Männer wie wir") is just ...like finally loosing in a penalty shoot-out after a comfortable lead.

You thought after "Traumschiff Surprise" that German comedy can't get worse? It can. This comedy is yet another attempt at perpetuating stereotypes of gay men masked as a nice comedy. The initial concept (openly gay men in soccer sports) would have been a great opportunity to erase some stereotypes, but... The real intended message of the movie seems to be in what way gay men are oh-so-different from straight men. Absolutely silly, of course. Even gay sex is treated as being of less value than straight sex. This movie only tries to serve straight audiences wanting to laugh about stereotypical gay men. Well, don't waste your time on German comedy movies!