Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) 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.

gehle 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...

Joejoesan 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!

Alexej This is a German remake of the 1976 classic Bad News Bears, though rewritten to appeal to a more international audience. Bad News Bears is about minor league baseball, something very familiar within the American culture. Die Wilden Kerle is about a bunch of kids wanting to play a ball game, something very familiar just about anywhere on this planet.The movie is in German, a language I had studied as a child but am rather rusty in now. But the cinematography and the acting were both excellent and completely made up for the fact that I understood at most 10% of the spoken language. It only proves that picture is worth a thousand words. And since a 96 minute movie contains more than eight million pictures...I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It made me feel young again. I have heard it is a big hit in Germany. I can see why! This movie definitely deserves to be seen all over the world. If you can get your hands on it, you will enjoy it, too.