The Wild Soccer Bunch (2003)
The school year is over and for a diverse group of carefree kids, soccer is king! These kids believe that they are the local gold team and there is nothing they like more than improving their game. "If you want to be cool, you should be wild." However, the relentless rain turns their field into a swamp, so they have to take an unexpected break. And when the sun finally comes, a gang of older, bigger and dumber boys has just taken over the field. They won't give it back unless they lose a match against the kids.
Watch Trailer
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
the audience applauded
Purely Joyful Movie!
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
This is the title of this first film. However, nothing is fine with this movie. The script is ridiculous, the lead actor is horrible and his brother in the supporting cast has even less talent if that is even possible. Also it's disgusting how the film's director and writer Joachim Masannek cast so many of his own kids for this one. He also worked with Heiner Lauterbach's daughter later in his career and this film here also has the son of one of Germany's most famous boxers. And the worst thing is that they made four more films in the years after this. But why not, if the German Film Academy nominated this piece of crap for Best Children's movie of the Year. At least it did not win. The Ochsenknecht brothers would never have a career without their famous dad. There are many great kids movies these days, but this one here from over 10 years ago has to be one of the worst. "Unbesiegbare Sieger" is already a very cringeworthy name for the enemy team and their face painting just took embarrassing to new heights in the end.Possibly the weakest aspect is the music. The songs from the Bananafishbones are disastrous and yet they made new songs for all of the next four movies too. Rufus Beck and Cornelia Froboess are probably the most famous actors from the cast, besides Father Ochsenknecht. They did well in not returning for any of the next films. This is not a funny movie. this is not a good drama movie. Not even a mediocre one and it gets worse the longer it goes. It's a story about tolerance towards girls, towards weaker football players, about teamwork, but none of it is convincingly written. The first 30-45 minutes were probably still a 4/10. All these superlative references, best trainer, wildest team, greatest players, world class solo, wildest girl on the planet... are fairly ridiculous. It seems as if this movie aspires to be so much and yet came up with so little due to lack of talent in the entire cast/crew. The kids actors mostly suck and it is not surprising that almost none of them still have a career. Sadly, most of the adults aren't much better. And the ending is exactly what you could expect. No surprise, no wit. A disgrace of a film. The only wild thing about it is how wildly chaotic and unrealistic it is. Stay away.
There's a breed of German movies addressed to the younger public and I remember this one being particularly pretentious. Saw this with my son in the theatre yrs ago. There's no need to burning DVD's.No one ever asked about it. It's rather about making big fuss about children, certain children's names. Bits of fun here and there, but being unrealistic (families, strange freak etc.) is definitely not excuseable by calling it a "modern fairy tale". Quite the most introductory literature books tell these way away from this plot. A lack of strong characters invented for children seems to be the predominant problem; it takes courage...
This is a strange movie. As an adult I hated the kid characters of this movie so much, that I wished some serial killer would cut them all to pieces. How rude, disrespectfull and annoying they are! At the same time, I can see why this movie appeals to kids so much. Parents are trash, bedrooms only excist to be demolished and girls... well, in these young boys's minds they're from a different planet and not interesting at all... yet. The story is about a bunch of kids who love playing soccer (nothing wrong with that). After a school break they discover that some hooligans have taken over their favourite soccer-field. How do they get it back? And more importantly: why should we really care? Die Wilde Kerle is a movie about teamwork and respect. Both good things to make a movie about. But why put it in a form like this one? There is actually one funny scene in which the bad guys attack Camelot, a tree house that also functions as a fall out base for Die Wilde Kerle. But sadly that was actually the only thing worth mentioning. All in all: Die Wilde Kerle is great for kids, but I advise parents to either avoid it on TV or burn the DVD's when you have the chance!
It seems to me that the people who made this movie firmly believe that a football (as a European I refuse to use the term soccer ;-) is a much better toy for a ten year-old child than, say, a Playstation and that children not only can but should get dirty while playing. Therefore the movie is refreshingly reminiscent of the children's movies of the 70s, such as "Vorstadtkrokodile". The "wild blokes" (that's what "Wilde Kerle" translates to) use swear-words, they don't always obey their parents, they have tests of courage and there is no stay-at-home or well-behaved mummy's darling to be found anywhere. In other words: As a child I would have LOVED this film and as an adult I still find it very entertaining and worth seeing.The minor complaint I have refers to the often unnatural dialogue. It's not the fault of the children that made up words like "Hottentottenalptraumnacht" sound stilted and strange; grown-up actors also would have trouble saying lines like this.Finally I have to say that I like how this film seems to be a real family affair. Because he was unhappy with the way football is taught to children in the F-youth of professional clubs, the director Joachim Massanek founded and coached a "little league" football team for his sons and the children of some of his friends (also called "Die wilden Kerle") and later wrote successful children's books about their adventures. In the film the characters Raban, Maxi, Markus and Juli are played by some of the real "wilde Kerle". Other members of the team are played by the sons of Uwe Ochsenknecht and Rufus Beck (Willi).Bottom line: This is a film not only for children but for anyone who remembers what it was like to play football at the pitch around the corner every afternoon after school.