Guys & Balls
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Movie Reviews of Guys & Balls
Movie Review: Fun Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first gay movie that I can actually say I have fun watching. This is a German movie with subtitles. It is made on the style of "The Mighty Ducks", a fun family movie, unfortunately not for the kiddies because of the subject matter. It was surprising to me to see a production company name in the credits, a subsidiary of a major studio associated with family type movies. I suppose I recognized the style.
The story still the same old theme of coming out and being alienated by peers, friends, and family members. But the line up of all these oddball characters make us forget for a moment the pain, makes us laugh, and root for the winners.
Ecki is a young man who works in a bakery with his father and mother in a small town in Germany. He is a goalie for the local soccer team. One night after a loss by the goalie, they still went ahead and celebrate. One of the other players, Udo, resented the fact that Ecki has lost the match for them. Ecki gets drunk looses his cool and kisses one of the other member of his team. He then gets chastised by his entire team and friends, town people, and his own father. In a moment of anger, he challenges Udo that a gay team will beat them, and sets a date for game.
Because his family are not too happy with him, he moves to a big city, where his sister (a nurse) lives and works. After coming out to Susane, he tells about his challenge in his hometown, and starts recruiting players for his gay team. He meets this other good looking young male nurse, Vater, at Susane's job, and he comes out to him and wants to join the team. A relationship flourish from this.
Ecki finds all sort of gay men, from hardcore bikers, two former professional African soccer players, an Arab working in a fast food restaurant, a washed out professional soccer player who owns the soccer field where they train as ball players. Relationships, friendships, bonding, all grow to make these people good enough team players. There are ups and downs but at the end they come out stronger. The final date arrives and the gay team wins the match with both guys facing each other, Udo and Ecki. Ecki regains his face in the town by blocking Udo's kick and the gay winning the match.
At the end, Vater and Ecki hold hands. Ecki introduces Vater to his father. Ecki's father accepts Ecki as gay. And the movie ends with a happy ending.
This is great movie, again with a style of a family movie. Here are the underdogs fighting a better and stronger team. With all the screwballs, their coach, the former washed out professional player, puts character and discipline into men, re-examining his own life, accepting at the end he is not a looser. All of the men are ordinary looking guys making the movie a bit more realistic. Even though the two main characters, Vater and Ecki are cute, they are not extraordinarily handsome like most other coming out movies actors. "Summer Storm" has a similar theme where a rowing gay team (which exist in real life in Berlin) beats a straight rowing team. I enjoyed this movie.
Movie Review: This Movie Scores
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Berry Hormann's German film "Guys & Balls" does for the gay community what the recent American movie "Pride" did for African Americans. Ecki (Maximilian Bruckner) is a blond, goodlooking soccer player who gets drummed off his local small-town team when his arch rival Udo discovers him kissing another male. All hell breaks loose from all sides including his father who is not going to accept the fact that his son is gay. The director treats the subject with enough humor for everyone. The father early on goes through Ecki's closet and discovers a loud shirt that "all of them wear," only to be reminded by his wife that the shirt belongs to him. There is a lot of locker-room humor that takes place in the locker room. Ecki's gay soccer team-- after getting kicked off his team for being gay, he organizes a group of motley gay men to challenge the heteros in a soccer match-- replaces naked girley photos in their lockers with naked men photos as well as other assorted sordid items.
Although the ending is predictable and some of the characters are a tad stereotypical-- the three leather bikers, the effeminate character, closeted guy, et al., there are certainly touching moments. One of the bikers, for instance, has been forced out of his small son's life by an angry ex-wife; and the son of course misses his dad. Ecki's sister, for the most part except for her screaming at one point that all the goodlooking men are gay and therefore off limits, is very supportive of her brother, allowing him to move in with her when he leaves home to round up a new soccer team.
Anyone who has ever marched in a gay pride parade, for instance, and felt his or her adrenalin flow when the gay-haters are shouting from the sidelines will love this movie. As one of the characters says, "it has to do with respect."
Movie Review: Harmless Fun
Summary: 3 Stars
Take "Bend it Like Beckham" and substitute the young girls for an all-gay ( almost) men's soccer team. Nothing particularly original here--with a most predictable ending. Guess who wins the soccer game between this all-gay team and the very homophobic former team of the lead character? But it is by no means a disaster. The gay stereotypes are all over the place, but this movie never really intended to say anything particularly important. So if you want a sport's comedy with a focus, of sorts, on the gay community--this is it. But don't expect to learn very much or to see the interaction of characters with any sort of depth to them. Movie Review: Great, fun, feel good movie.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an endearing story, without too much focus on nudity and sex.Movie Review: Cute and fun
Summary: 4 Stars
There isn't much in the way of criticism I have for this fun and interesting and colorful (and German) sports movie (which isn't really about sports.)
The characters are a bunch of gay misfits who take on the evil (and straight) soccer studs of the primary character's hometown. It's the underdog story done with a gay team and in German style and language. It's worth wading through the subtitles and covers a range of gay and family issues. It's topical and refreshing, and the ending is suitably fun.
This is a film worth your time. It's a charmer gay underdog story with a fresh German flair. Recommended.