Sönke Wortmann Movies

Three loveable ex-Hollywood actors -- Tom (Tom Berenger), Kage (Burt Reynolds), and Floyd (Rod Steiger) -- decide to use their fading talents to con a mobster (Al Sapienza) out of seven million dollars when they find his latest victim dead under the Hollywood sign. Disguised as detectives, the trio confronts the violent mobsters in their zillion-dollar Los Angeles mansion, but the game goes from whimsical to dangerous when the gangsters discover what's happening. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide

Acclaimed German director Soenke Wortmann spins this cleverly constructed, sumptuously shot crime drama set in St. Pauli, Hamburg's notorious red light district. The film opens with a gang of thugs dumping someone's ashes in the harbor. One of the group, brash punk Johnny (Benno Fuermann) crosses town in a cab driven by Robby (Ill-young Kim). As the film jumps from one story to the next, Robby and his taxi emerge as the central thread that holds the film together. Later, a naked man with a gun terrorizes a crowded street and accidentally kills Johnny. The film immediately dives into the naked man's history before moving on to the movie's sundry other outcasts and miscreants such as brassy transvestite Roberta, disaffected punk Sven, and sleazy club owner Billi. With a cool, almost clinical eye, Wortmann artfully cuts back and forth through both space and time as his characters are systematically picked off. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

This German farce has fun parodying the local filmmaking industry and some its more popular stars as it tells the riotous tale of a neglected, lonely Munich housewife who writes a tawdry best-selling account of her sexual past. The situation begins when Franziska, the wife tires of hanging around the house raising two mischievous children while her husband the television director gallivants to far-flung locales sleeping with every actress in sight. She has a conversation with an understanding lawyer and through miscommunication ends up launching divorce proceedings. It is the lawyer who advises her to write down her erotic history. Later, an old high school flame turned publisher sees her manuscript and suggests she publish it as an erotic novel using a pseudonym. Things go swimmingly until her husband buys the film rights and decides to turn it into a trashy movie. This film was extremely popular in Germany. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ingo (Jurgen Vogel) is a moody fellow, much given to dark looks and long silences. In his personal life, he is a writer, but his "day job" is as a dishwasher at a restaurant. One day, an actor at one of Germany's eight major acting schools leaves a stool from the school at the restaurant, and Ingo must go to return it. Since the only people who ever darken the school's doors are actors, the people there immediately assume that Ingo is one, too - especially since he has so much beautiful "attitude." One thing leads to another, and before long he has made the acquaintance of Johannes (Kai Wiesinger), a very dedicated actor, who has flunked out of all seven of the other acting schools due to his pathological fear of auditions. He persuades Ingo to join him in a jaunt to Munich to try for a role on the professional stage, so that he won't have to constantly audition for school productions. For a lark, Ingo, whose girlfriend just jilted him, agrees to go along. Before long the two intrepid aspiring actors are joined by a third, a smooth ladies' man named Ali (Gedeon Burkhard), and their adventures have just begun. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, three militant feminists decide that the ultimate proof of their superiority in the battle of the sexes will be if they can convert a leather-clad man (whom they assume to be an oaf, an "arrogant, self-centered braggart") into what they imagine is an archetypically sensitive man. However, despite some amusingly pointed rhetoric from the women, when they persuade this paragon of masculine crudeness to take a job which includes quarters in the basement of their house, they get embroiled in a plain and very ordinary romantic competition. In fact, the real winner is the puzzled but highly satisfied subject of their machinations. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide