Am I Missing Something?

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

"Winterkartoffelknödel" is a German 90-minute movie from 2 years ago. It is the sequel to "Dampfnudelblues", both written by Rita Falk. The core action is a murder case that the local detective tries to solve. However, this has nothing to do with "Tatort". This film here is at least 50% comedy. All the characters, major and minor, have entertaining quirks. There has recently been a wave of German films that mix crime and detective stories with comedy that has a lot to do with the humour of the region where the film takes place. This is true here too. The titles of both films include dishes that are particularly famous in Bavaria. I also do not want to go too much into detail in terms of the crime and police investigation here as for me this was okay to watch, but the comedy stood out a lot more. The film is absurd, has lots of black humor and is very much over the top, but in a good way. One example would be the scene when the detective's father accidentally cuts off his toe and the son is busy talking to the female main character, a murder suspect, instead of helping his dad. And then suddenly a second severed toe shows up. Or the scene when the woman sucks on the detective's finger. I also guess that the makers of this film were more interested in the comedy than the crime story as it was not really too surprising who the killers were and honestly I did not really care for the solution. I cared much more for the fun and the experienced regardless of it was just interactions between the family members or the real investigation. This film is probably not for everybody. But it is for me. And it is for everybody who has better taste in terms of crime films than watching the mostly disappointing Tatort episodes each week. I see a third film will come out in autumn this year and I will definitely check it out too at some point. Until then, I recommend "Winterkartoffelknödel". Pretty funny watch.

I still haven't read the novels this is based on (the chronology is supposedly off with the movie, this actually would have been before the book/movie Dampfnudelblues) and everyone who has read them tells me, they are even better than the movies, which is hard to cope. But as it is, this gets it right once again.Actually it doesn't only get it right, it makes it even better. You have to like that special kind of humor of course. If you do, you will have a blast with this. The characters are small town "crazy" and this could be a German version of a Fargo world or something similar. Not that I want to compare the director or the movie as a whole with Fargo. It's the characters in it, that are similar.You don't have to see the first one before watching this, but it would make sense. Not to mention that it's also a great movie too. Have fun (and you will), that's all I can say!

Shaft, Colombo, Kojak, Franz Eberhofer. Unlike his hard-hitting peers, Franz Eberhofer leads a slightly more mellowed-out style of life. A village cop on the wrong side of forty, he lives in a converted pigsty on the family farm together with his slacker dad and his psycho granny. While he's busy sabotaging demands from the mayor to work as a male lollipop lady, the heating in his abode goes bust, a mysterious foxy lady arrives in the quiet village, and a family of four is drastically decimated to a single lone survivor. Franz Eberhofer once again has to enlist the help of his histrionic colleague Rudi Birkenberger, his modern-day Watson, to crack the case.Director Ed Herzog and his crew have once again managed to turn Rita Falk's intelligent and entertaining literary original into an intelligent and entertaining movie. It's tremendously enjoyable to watch, every scene works on its own and still adds to the plot. A large part of the reason is the great cast. Literally all the roles have been perfectly casted. Take for instance the (relatively unknown actress) Jeannette Haim as the mysterious moll Mercedes who drives all the village jokels wild. It's amazing how alluring she comes across even next to the blonder, younger, prettier Susi.Finally we have prove that a German movie can be good and funny at the same time. Winterkartoffelknödel is so good I saw it twice already.