Guys and Balls

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Guys and Balls
Männer wie wir film.jpg
Männer wie wir film poster
Directed bySherry Hormann
Written by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyHanno Lentz
Edited byMagda Habernickel
Eva Schnare
Music byMartin Todsharow
Distributed byRegent Releasing
Release date
7 October 2004 (Germany)
Running time
106 minutes
LanguageGerman

Guys and Balls (German: Männer wie wir, literally Men like us, UK title: Balls) is a 2004 sports comedy/romance film by German American director Sherry Hormann about a gay goalkeeper who assembles a gay-only soccer team to play against his ex-team, which fired him due to homophobia.

Plot[]

Ecki (Maximilian Brückner) lives with his parents who own a bakery in Boldrup, a (fictitious) small German town near Dortmund. Football, the German national pastime, is particularly popular in this heavily industrialized region and Ecki has been an avid and successful player in a local club FC Boldrup, since his childhood days.

In a decisive game, he fails to keep a ball at a penalty and the team fails to get the promotion to the district league. The team are devastated and get drunk at a party. Ecki is then evicted from the team, with his mistake being used to cover the real reason—the revelation that he is gay that comes about when he is observed by some of his teammates kissing another player Tobias on the mouth.

Ecki is defiant and immediately sets out to form his own team and beat his ex-teammates at their game. So he sets off for Dortmund to find members for his new team with the help of his sister Susanne, who is living there. From the fans of his favorite club Borussia Dortmund he finds confusion, but he gradually succeeds in others places, such as a kebab shop and the leather bar 'Steel Tube' to recruit more homosexual players for his team. Among the greatest hopes are the two Brazilians Ronaldo and Ronaldinho and the actually hidden heterosexual bookseller Klaus.

Meanwhile, he also manages to win the heart of dreamboy Sven (), who becomes his first boyfriend. Training of the team is done by Karl (Rolf Zacher), an ex-soccer player himself who quit the sport years ago after a stinging defeat.

When the big day of the game comes, the match starts out badly for Ecki's team, but ultimately they are able to triumph over his old teammates by allowing their homophobia to turn against themselves.

Cast[]

  • as Susanne jung 1
  • as Ecki jung 1
  • Dietmar Bär as Vater (Father)
  • Saskia Vester as Mutter (Mother)
  • as Susanne jung 2
  • as Ecki jung 2
  • as Cordula jung
  • as Udo jung
  • Maximilian Brückner as Ecki
  • as Wirt, Ticket seller
  • as Rentner Rudi
  • as Cordula (billed as Judith Delphine Hoersch)
  • Carlo Ljubek as Udo
  • Mirko Lang as Tobias
  • as Bernhard (billed as Tobias Vandieken)
  • as Frank
  • as Udos Vater
  • Lisa Maria Potthoff as Susanne
  • as Klaus
  • as Kunde in der Bäckerei, Customer
  • Rolf Zacher as Trainer Karl
  • Mariele Millowitsch as Wirtin Elke
  • as Pregnant lady (Schwangere Frau)
  • as Ehemann
  • as Sven
  • as beer garden Guest 1
  • as beer garden Guest 2
  • Andreas Schmidt as Jürgen
  • as BVB Fan 1
  • as BVB Fan 2
  • as Ercin
  • as Tom
  • Christian Berkel as Rudolf
  • Charly Hübner as Horst
  • Jeanette Goetz as male nurse (Krankenschwester) 1
  • Sunia-Shahana Ali as male nurse (Krankenschwester) 2
  • Marcel Nievelstein as Jan
  • Sascha Herzogenrath as transvestite
  • Thomas Fischer as Gay Firefighter 1
  • Heup Henning Heup as Gay Firefighter 2
  • Michael von Burg as Martin
  • Edesson Batista De Jesus as Ronaldo
  • Edilton Pereira Da Cruz as Ronaldino
  • Judith Döker as Prostitute
  • Sybille J. Schedwill as Jan's Mutter
  • Mohammad-Ali Behboudi as Ercin's Vater
  • Max Hopp as Steffen
  • Helmut Schenkel as Harley rider (Harleyfahrer)
  • Rolf Vogel as Harleyfahrer
  • Klaus Schwen as Harleyfahrer
  • Frank Krebs as Harleyfahrer
  • Franz-Josef Neumann as Harleyfahrer
  • Markus Kaiser as Harleyfahrer
  • Dennis Schenkel as Harleyfahrer
  • Wolfgang Jansen as Harleyfahrer
  • Markus Meisinger as FC Boldrup Fan
  • J. Geraldo Datovo as Samba-Truppe
  • Heinrich Weitz as referee (Schiedsrichter) 1
  • Willi Meuser as Schiedsrichter 2
  • Oskar Bläser as Trainer Boldrup
  • Frank Tepferd as footballer (Fußballspieler) FC Boldrup
  • Stefan Nüsser as Fußballspieler FC Boldrup
  • Heiko von der Bey as Fußballspieler FC Boldrup
  • David Careno as Fußballspieler FC Boldrup
  • Daniel Careno as Fußballspieler FC Boldrup
  • Martin Watson as Fußballspieler FC Boldrup
  • Christoph Paeßens as Fußballspieler FC Boldrup
  • Oli Scheel as Fußballspieler FC Boldrup
  • Lutz Herdener as Fußballspieler FC Boldrup
  • Jan Platte as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Willi Schaaf as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Marc Gößlig as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Daniel Edingloh as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Sebastian Klein as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Detlev Henke as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Christoph Kanne as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Miklas Melin as Fussballspieler FC Ruhrgold 8 (as Niklas Melin)
  • Malte Kossleck as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Christian Ernst as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold
  • Eric Beta as Fußballspieler FC Ruhrgold

Reaction[]

Männer wie wir may be regarded as the first major German sports comedy. While this genre is far more established in the United States with movies such as Hardball (2001) or The Mighty Ducks (1992) in which an underdog team is posed to somehow find the spirit to win an important game against a far superior opponent, these kinds of movies are relatively rare in German cinema. It may therefore not be surprising that this particular movie was made by an American-born director.[citation needed]

Awards[]

  • Audience Award of the Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2006 in the category Best Feature Film (3rd place)[1]
  • Audience Award of the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2005 in Philadelphia in the category Best Feature[1]
  • Audience Award of the Milano Festival Internazionale di Cinema Gaylesbico 2006 in the category Best Film[1]
  • Audience Award of Outfest 2005 in Los Angeles in the category Outstanding Narrative Feature[1]
  • Jury Award of the Lesbian & Gay Festival Brussels 2005 in the category Best Foreign Language Film[1]
  • Le Prix du public of the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2005 in Long Island in the category Meilleur Long Gay[1]

Critical reception[]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 38% based on reviews from 13 critics.[2]

Joshua Katzman of the Chicago Reader called the film "engaging" and "well-paced" with "a vibrantly funny script".[3] Dennis Harvey of Variety states that the film is "by-the-numbers ensemble dramedy that hits every underdog and gay-fish-out-of-water cliche on the nose".[4] Jeanette Catsoulis of The New York Times said the "script groans with double-entendres" and it contains "lots of cheerful nudity, loving threesomes and more synonyms for "gay"".[5]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f "Männer wie wir, Kinofilm 2003/2004" (in German). HM-Film.de. Archived from the original on 2013-02-12. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
  2. ^ "Guys and Balls (2006)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  3. ^ Katzman, Joshua. "Guys and Balls". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  4. ^ Harvey, Dennis (5 July 2005). "Guys and Balls". Variety. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  5. ^ Catsoulis, Jeannette (28 April 2006). "The Hometown Homophobes Meet Their Match in 'Guys and Balls'". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 January 2019.

External links[]

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