F*ck You, Goethe (2013)

Directed by: Bora Dagtekin
Country: Germany

Movie Review: With a fast pace and presented with flamboyant colors, but also too forced and exaggerated to be sufficiently consistent, “F*ck You, Goethe” promised a lot in the first minutes but degenerates in uneven situations after a short period. Zeki Miller (Elyas M’Barek) is an impolite, inconsiderate, and uneducated ex-con who applies for a vacant position of janitor in Goethe School but ends up as substitute teacher. Without any interest in the job, Zeki just wants to have access to the new gym of the school, constructed precisely where his prostitute friend had buried his bag of money at the time he was arrested. Quarrelsome and impatient, Zeki will impose some respect to the rebel students by making their life a living hell, on the contrary of his colleague Lisi (Karoline Herfurth) who was born to be a teacher but doesn’t have strength to control the constant pranks of the kids. As expected, and as the film approaches its end, Zeki and Lisi help the kids finding their own way of expression, becoming ‘cool’ teachers, while true romance is inevitable. Some jokes and situations that were supposed to be funny didn’t achieve their purposes (the whimpers are so stupid that drove me nuts), while some others, despite tolerable, can be considered polemic (references to Nazism, prostitution and drug dealing). The second feature film from Turkish-German director Bogda Dagtekan, creator of TV series “Turkish for Beginners”, is a teen movie for adults with so much of ridicule that has the same effect as fast food: my stomach can’t tolerate it anymore.