"Schwarze Schafe" or "Black Sheep" is a Swiss/German co-production in the German-language and this one had its world premiere back in 2006, so it is already over a decade old. The director is Oliver Rihs and he is also the writer, or I should say one of the writers because there are quite a few and it's certainly an example of too many cooks spoiling the broth, but I'll talk about the quality later. If you know a bit about German film, then you will find several familiar names and faces here, such as Milan Peschel, Marc Hosemann, Tom Schilling, Robert Stadlober, Mina Tander and also the late Eralp Uzun and Frank Giering. So even if I may not be that big on some of these, there is no denying that the cast offered the potential for a quality film here. But I don't think the premise was fulfilled at all. The comedy was rarely funny to be honest and all the talk about relationships for example never felt authentic, never felt in a way where I was thinking that I was watching actual characters and not actors. i don't think the cast is to blame, but the script perhaps. Anyway, this movie is almost entirely in black-and-white and runs for roughly 1.5 hours, And while there are a few b&w films from recent years (21st century) that I enjoyed quite a bit, this one here is certainly not one of them. I also felt that to be honest the movie had way too many characters for its own good and instead of elaborating and developing convincingly on a few, it introduced one after the next and as a consequence it all stayed above the surface and the film never felt like it had any depth, not to mention great depth. The first sentence in the plot summary here talks about the film exploring Berlin lifestyle and I as a Berlin citizen for almost three decades now cannot say the background and where the film plays made any lasting impression and I would certainly appreciate it more than those coming from other regions of Germany (or Switzerland/Austria or even the world). So overall I am definitely baffled by the film's awards attention as this was not a memorable watch at all. I am even sure that my rating of 2 stars out of 5 is still a bit on the generous side as there were moments and scenes that had me think about a one star rating. I don't recommend this film. It tries to be smart, hip and authentic, but it's none of all that. Watch something else instead.
Review of Schwarze Schafe
