"Friendship!" is a movie from five years ago which runs for 100 minutes (without the closing credits) and starts like a poor man's version of "Good Bye Lenin". Schweighöfer is maybe the biggest German movie star right now together with Schweiger and back when this was made, he was also already fairly famous. The other central character here is played by Friedrich Mücke and even if he got most of the awards recognition, he is barely known at all anymore now. Same can be said about Alicja Bachleda (looks a bit like Shakira here), the female main character in this one. She has a child from a previous relationship with Colin Farrell, but acting-wise she has almost sunk into oblivion. Anyway, back to Schweighöfer, I always thought his great success is really more thanks to charisma and recognition value than to great acting skills and I am yet to see a performance where he really wows me. This is certainly not it. The film's director is Markus Goller, maybe his most known project so far. He reunited with Schweighöfer three years later for making "Frau Ella". The writer is Oliver Ziegenbalg. He also did not have a great career yet, but he also worked again with Schweighöfer on "Russendisko" afterward.The movie is about two young German men who make use of the Fall of the Wall by making a trip to the United States in order to meet the father of one of them. They meet a handful strange and entertaining characters (bikers, cartoon artists...) on the way including a beautiful woman which quickly results in the two risking their friendship over her. Most of the cast are Americans who play small one-scene roles, but also Gitta Schweighöfer is for example in the film. Milan Peschel (who regularly works with her son) is not this time. From the title plot, you can probably see where this is headed. The two main characters' friendship grows, but also faces challenges on their journey and it's a typical not very funny (of course the girl in the supermarket would speak German) road movie with the expected language barrier jokes and really nothing that wasn't done before. Here and there, a couple dramatic developments are included like references to people who died fleeing from the GDR into the West or the friendship struggles I mentioned earlier, but it is really mostly a comedy. Not a particularly entertaining one though. Not recommended. I did like the Silbermond song in the end though.

A German movie about a road trip from New York to San Francisco: unfortunately nothing is really interesting in this movie: not the acting, not the gags, not the story itself. The overall result is under the usual standard for a comedy and this is a pity because the subject (two youngsters from east Germany traveling trough America after the fall of the Berlin wall) was promising and could have inspired a much better plot.To further enhance the sense of estrangement Matthias Schweighöfer bears a weird resemblance with Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth from 'Game of Thrones') in some scenes.I wonder if I missed something which is understandable only by German speakers but I doubt it: fun is a Universal language.

I didn't know what the story was about, but during the course of the movie I got the feeling this was based on a true story. And yes it does, though you would have guessed the movie could have come a bit earlier, considering the real story took place after the fall of the Berlin Wall (which happened 20 years before this movie were released theatrically) and is practically a road movie.And as it is with Road movies, you get introduced to characters and only get a glimpse of (most of) them. Of course there is a goal to achieve, though the trials and tribulation they go through don't seem too hard. And the money issue does not seem to be any at all at times. But you might not even care about details like that. And one thing is for sure, the ending has some impact to it (although I feel it could have been stronger).

I understand that most people won't get too excited about this movie. There is a lot of subtle humor in it that requires some knowledge of how life was in East Germany, what things like "Mondos" were for instance, in order to appreciate the jokes. One may argue that the movie has overdone some of it. I think it was highly unlikely that two East German guys walked up to the immigration officer at a New York airport and state that they are communists. People in East Germany knew that this wouldn't be a smart move. But, hey, it is also rather unlikely that a US official asks a German bluntly if he was a Nazi. And there are a few other details that might be historically incorrect. Whatever! Getting into this kind of discussion does not do justice to the movie. I had a great time watching it. Many things reminded me of my own first trip to the states mere months after reunification. Besides, it is a road movie with beautiful pictures and sceneries from the American province. And the ending with its twist is indeed quite strong. It turns out that the movie title "Friendship!" is not only a reference to the official greeting within the communist youth organization in East Germany. This picture is also literally about friendship.