Harte Jungs Movie Review, Film Still and Poster

Germany 2000
Director: Marc Rothemund
Cast: Tobias Schenke, Axel Stein, Luise Helm, Mina Tander, Andrea Sawatzki, Nicky Kantor
Release Date: 2000
Rating: FSK 12
Original Language: German
Running Time: 1 hour 22 mins 13 secs

Review of the Movie

Harte Jungs film still 1

"Woof! Woof woof woof", "Florian..., why are you barking on the carpet?"


HARTE JUNGS (Ants in the Pants)
Storyline:
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Every good thing has followers or imitators, heckuva hack! Even bad thing has them too. It's particularly normal in the movie world to imitate a good motion picture and make a new movie out of it. Sometimes in return, that new movie (if it's good enough) could also be the source of another movie in the future. This all refer to American Pie as the original one (well it's not that all original but it's not the context) and Harte Jungs as the another movie that try to capture American Pie's hype. In return, a hilarious movie in 2007 has even captured not only the hype of American Pie but also the characters from Harte Jungs! That movie, is called Superbad, which consecutively the characters in Superbad are re-summoned in Drillbit Taylor (2008). It's all merely an imitating-merry-go-round actually.

Harte Jungs or in some part of the world would be called "Ants in The Pants" or "Just the Two of Us" was released in 2000 only a few months after the release of American Pie. It tells a wacky story of a young guy named Florian or Fly (Tobias Schenke) who wakes up one day finding his "thing" in full erection and even talks to him (agitating him precisely). This dude talks to his ding dong! Then when having a normal morning breakfast, he even has a sexual-crush on his admittedly hot aunt Zelda (Andrea Sawatzki) and unintentionally undresses her with his bulging eyes. The bewilderment of wackiness keep going on and on, so Fly seeks help from his closest ones, but it's still going nowhere until he seeks advice from his best bud Rudolph "Red Bull" (Axel Stein). As a good friend, Red Bull tries to solve Fly's 'problem' by taking Fly to go find Kama Sutra book, peep on Bull's neighbours, teach him how to open a bra, and even to hook up with a prostitute. But it doesn't stop there for Fly because Red Bull's advice got a tough match from... Fly's 'thing'! Which instructs Fly to call a phone sex, pursue Leoni (Mina Tander) the hottest girl in school who happens to have the most ferocious boyfriend in school, all which eventually cause more trouble than solution. Sadly, Fly even ignores his best friend and secret-admirer Lisa (Luisa Helm). Could Fly finally find the answer he's been looking for?

I've gotta tell you, even though the characters in this German Filmkomödie aren't anything new, but I really like Axel Stein's character Red Bull, he play two major roles in this film, as a sidekick to Florian but also serves as a fuel that runs Harte Jungs storyline. He is the type of "Best friend who always gives bad advice", but his advice are so bad, that instead of making desperate one liner jokes (like most teen movies) he sends Florian to problem pit, moreover instead of backing off from the problems he's created and let the main character solve them (again like most teen movies), Red Bull comes up with solutions, wacky solutions that is, freshly raunchy kind of solutions.

I'm sure it's pretty clear anything and everything that Harte Jungs has to offer is a comedy for young people or the young at heart. Easy to digest, gross and sometimes over-the-top type of humor, the ingredients are well known to the lover of the genre. It's just that Harte Jungs was released shortly after American Pie, so the comparisons between the two were unavoidable. Basically, it's quite different that some fellow moviegoers might assume, it has a certain taste of pie about Harte Jungs. I'm not saying that everything in Harte Jungs is more genuine than in American Pie (American Pie's actors chemistry is excellent), but it seems clear to me that several aspects in Harte Jungs are more "real" than other similar teen-flicks.

This comedy movie is actually pretty amusing and even hilarious in some scenes. The key to enjoy this movie is to watch it long after you forgot all about American Pie, if you have, then it's time to get a bite of this German pie.