"Männerhort" or "The Man Cave" is a German movie from 2014. It runs for slightly under 100 minutes (including credits) and it is the first big screen directorial effort by Franziska Meyer Price, after a long career of television work that sadly includes a lot of garbage too, such as "Doctor's Diary". She is not a writer though and the play by Kristof Magnusson was adapted by Ungureit and Ewerrien here, who are most known for the film "Systemfehler" other than that, but you can safely say that "Männerhort" is by far the most known work of the trio now. This also has a lot to do with the cast. Getting Herbst, M'Barek and Buck for the trio of main characters is something you can really only hope for because of their popularity. I myself quite like Herbst and Buck and their inclusion certainly made this a better watch. Never been a fan of M'Barek at all and he is equally disappointing here. As for the supporting characters, you may find more familiar names if you are a German film buff, especially if you look at the 3 (or 4) protagonists' love interests. Or Michael Gwisdek, who was cast for a little cameo just because he is Michael Gwisdek, at which I can only shake my head.
So this is the story of three men who have enough of their partners and just want some time for themselves, so they have a secret hideout where they meet with their friends and just spend some male-only time doing exactly as they please. The comedy here basically relies entirely on their interactions and on flashback scenes where we see the protagonists and their wives/girlfriends. There were some okay moments in these scenes, but honestly nothing too funny either. This film is entirely comedy. There are dramatic moments on rare occasions, but even these are only handled from the fun perspective. And this is also one reason why I cannot take the film seriously. For example we find out one character slept with another character's woman. Then we find out the other character who was supposedly working slept with the other character's woman at the exact same time. Oh well.. talk about realism. Then we find out one character got another character's woman pregnant. But hey, this cannot be anything that destroys their friendship or so. It's all the woman's fault? If at all. Apparently, just one woman's fault. And then they just leave in the end and will never return to this place where we are supposed to believe it is some kind of sacred location for the guys.
It's impossible for me to really appreciate this one. Buck (and Herbst to a lesser extent) managed to make this watchable at times, but if we are honest here, the screenplay and story in general are pretty garbage. Sadly, films like this one are apparently right now what many audiences want to see and this is also why they have 1000+ ratings on IMDb. I am not sure if this is a good thing as it becomes more and more difficult this way to find German comedy films that offer decent entertainment and depth. This is not one of these. i give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
So this is the story of three men who have enough of their partners and just want some time for themselves, so they have a secret hideout where they meet with their friends and just spend some male-only time doing exactly as they please. The comedy here basically relies entirely on their interactions and on flashback scenes where we see the protagonists and their wives/girlfriends. There were some okay moments in these scenes, but honestly nothing too funny either. This film is entirely comedy. There are dramatic moments on rare occasions, but even these are only handled from the fun perspective. And this is also one reason why I cannot take the film seriously. For example we find out one character slept with another character's woman. Then we find out the other character who was supposedly working slept with the other character's woman at the exact same time. Oh well.. talk about realism. Then we find out one character got another character's woman pregnant. But hey, this cannot be anything that destroys their friendship or so. It's all the woman's fault? If at all. Apparently, just one woman's fault. And then they just leave in the end and will never return to this place where we are supposed to believe it is some kind of sacred location for the guys.
It's impossible for me to really appreciate this one. Buck (and Herbst to a lesser extent) managed to make this watchable at times, but if we are honest here, the screenplay and story in general are pretty garbage. Sadly, films like this one are apparently right now what many audiences want to see and this is also why they have 1000+ ratings on IMDb. I am not sure if this is a good thing as it becomes more and more difficult this way to find German comedy films that offer decent entertainment and depth. This is not one of these. i give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.