Guys and Balls

Guys and Balls
Guys and Balls
	Männer wie wir film poster
Directed by	Sherry Hormann
Written by	Benedikt Gollhardt
Produced by	Kirsten Hager
Starring	Eileen Eilender; Leon Breitenborn
Cinematography	Hanno Lentz
Edited by	Magda Habernickel; Eva Schnare
Music by	Martin Todsharow
Production; companies	Hager Moss Film; Medienfonds GFP; RTL
Distributed by	Buena Vista International
Release date	7 October 2004;
Running time	106 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German

Guys and Balls (German: Männer wie wir, literally Men like us, UK title: Balls) is a 2004 German 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 (David Rott), 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

Eileen Eilender as Susanne jung 1
Leon Breitenborn as Ecki jung 1
Dietmar Bär as Vater (Father)
Saskia Vester as Mutter (Mother)
Anna Koesling as Susanne jung 2
Steven Wellmann as Ecki jung 2
Melody Sitta as Cordula jung
Jan Giffel as Udo jung
Maximilian Brückner as Ecki
Willi Thomczyk as Wirt, Ticket seller
Jochen Stern as Rentner Rudi
Judith Hoersch as Cordula (billed as Judith Delphine Hoersch)
Carlo Ljubek as Udo
Mirko Lang as Tobias
Tobias van Dieken as Bernhard (billed as Tobias Vandieken)
Simon Solberg as Frank
Felix Vörtler as Udos Vater
Lisa Maria Potthoff as Susanne
Hans Löw [de] as Klaus
Nikolai Will as Kunde in der Bäckerei, Customer
Rolf Zacher as Trainer Karl
Mariele Millowitsch as Wirtin Elke
Ute Maria Lerner as Pregnant lady (Schwangere Frau)
Nicholas Bodeux as Ehemann
David Rott as Sven
Heppi Pohl as beer garden Guest 1
Dirk Koch as beer garden Guest 2
Andreas Schmidt as Jürgen
Michael Kleiber as BVB Fan 1
Hans-Joachim Bauer as BVB Fan 2
Billey Demirtas as Ercin
Markus John 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 the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 36% of 14 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.2/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[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

^ ^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.
^ "Guys and Balls". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
^ Katzman, Joshua. "Guys and Balls". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
^ Harvey, Dennis (5 July 2005). "Guys and Balls". Variety. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
^ 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

Guys and Balls at IMDb

[hm-film-1] ^ ^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.

[Metacritic-2] "Guys and Balls". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 22 December 2022.

[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.

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