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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Breezy, Entertaining and Refreshingly Honest Comedy, April 21, 2005
ECHTE KERLE or REGULAR GUYS is a polished little 1996 comedy from Germany that manages to tell a tale of mixing genders and satisfy all viewers no matter their viewpoint. Rarely has a film handled straight/gay juxtapostions with such an unbiased, honest and relaxed vantage. So often these gender bender films have the look of mini-budget movies, but this film as directed by Rolf Silber based on a screenplay by Silber and Rudolf Bergmann is photographed with panache by Jürgen Herrmann is slickly creative and wholly professional.
Christoph Schwenk (Christoph Ohrt) is a plainclothesman police officer who does stakeouts spying on criminals with his partners Mike (Oliver Stokowski) and Helen (Carin Tietze). As the film opens Christoph is thrown out of his place by his 'ignored' girlfriend who has replaced him with a bodybuilder lover. Dismayed and angry, Christoph begins to drink, loses his car keys, his belongings on the street, and ends up with no place to stay as he stumbles into a gay bar where he passes out completely drunk. When he awakens he discovers he is in the arms of Edgar, a handsome auto mechanic who rehabs cars (?stolen?) and the question arises as to whether the two had sex during the night. Edgar is a kind and gentle man who evades this question, obviously feeling an attraction to Christoph. Edgar clothes Christoph so that he can find a place to stay and make it to work at the current stake out which just happens to be spying on car thieves.
At work Mike and Helen notice something different in the paranoid Christoph who is more interested in finding an apartment and resolving his question of the previous night's sexual occurrences than he is with work. Unable to find any kind of hotel or apartment at all, he sleeps in his car until he eventually has the nerve to accept Edgar's offer for him to move in with him. Christoph makes it clear that is his Straight and Edgar makes it equally clear that he is Gay and likes Christoph.
The relationship between Christoph and Edgar gradually strengthens, the threat of sexuality weakens to the point that as Christoph is seen in public with Edgar and when razed at work, Christoph sides with the idea of appearing gay and has a wonderful locker room confrontation with his fellow cops that says a lot about the barriers between gays and straights! Slowly, as Christoph settles into his new living conditions, he becomes enamored with Helen who is more than ready to pursue Christoph as she notices his 'machoisms' dwindle. At the same time Edgar's weekend lover Marco (Andreas Pietschmann) causes Christoph to query his surprising 'jealousy'. The three police become friendly with Edgar and Marco and when it seems they may be involved in the car theft ring under stakeout, they each find it easier to turn the other cheek and support each other.
The ending pairs off the various members of this story in a warm and funny way, a manner which some may find predictable, but still satisfying and allowing all barriers to be down.
The cast is uniformly excellent - the cameo supporting roles are very well done - and for once a film about straight perceptions of gay life makes ALL of the characters non-stereotyped: the men are all handsome hunks and the women are all beauties. This is light entertainment, a comedy with a message well stated. Grady Harp, April 05.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
aka "REGULAR GUYS", Witty romantic comedy, November 8, 2003
Christoph is having a bad day. The macho but somewhat self-involved police detective gets thrown out of his fiance's apartment, loses his possessions, and passes out drunk at a bar. The next morning isn't working out much better, as he wakes up hungover ... and in the bed and arms of a gay man, Tim, who refuses to tell him if anything "happened" other than sleep. A shortage of apartments and hotel rooms forces Christoph to accept Tim's offer to let him stay until he finds a place of his own. They come to an understanding: Christoph makes it clear that he is straight. Tim makes it clear that he is in love with Christoph. This is the basic premise of the 1996 German film "Echte Kerle (Regular Guys)", a witty romantic comedy featuring some very funny scenes and good acting. Adding to the mix are Christoph's police partners, one male and one female (the latter interested in Christoph), as well as some light details of a case the three of them are working on. It also becomes known that Tim may be involved in fixing up and selling stolen vehicles, which puts Christoph (and his partners, who meet and like Tim) in a difficult position. When undercover cops staking out Tim's garage see him with Christoph, the rumor spreads that Christoph is gay, and he hillariously decides not to fight the rumor. In German with English subtitles, but I had no problems whatsoever following the story via the latter (Even though I don't understand more than a couple of words of German, I suspect the translators may have taken some literary license in doing so, as sometimes several lines in German are translated as a one or two syllable English word. But the story flows very well, and the laughs seem to come at the appropriate parts in either language). I'll give it 3 stars out of 5, and recommend it for those who like comedies.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly Interesting, July 29, 2005
I'm a person who rarely watches a movie in one sitting, but I could barely pull myself away from this amusing and insightful German film that covers a lot of bases about our attitudes toward same-sex (and opposite sex) love.
In a nutshell, our protagonist is thrown out by his fiancee and lands in the eager arms (or more?) of a chipper, kindly, patient gay man, who just might be repairing stolen cars, which is a problem because the main character (and his friends) are cops. Although it is never clear just exactly how far the two men go during this first drunken interlude, it makes less and less difference as the story evolves and their affection for each other grows. Of course there are other affections developing too, and it's really all quite interesting and somewhat insightful.
The acting is good, the story interesting, the secondary characters colorful, and the pacing is great. The ending was maybe a little trite, but cute and good enough to leave you feeling satisfied and entertained.
I wonder if the translations from German were entirely correct, as sometimes the dialog was a bit choppy, and the translation may account for this. So, if you can get past the subtitles, (and I think you will want to) I recommend this as an amusing and interesting film which will keep you interested and make you think right up until the end. This is a strong foreign film that is worth your time.
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