Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Piratensender Power Play" is a German 82-minute movie from almost 35 years ago, or I should maybe say West German as, back then, there were still 2 German countries in existence. Writer and director is Sigi Rothemund and the two lead actors Thomas Gottschalk and Mike Krüger also helped out with the script. If you are from Germany, you have certainly come across these 2 names on some occasion. Gottschalk turned into the biggest show-master from Europe and Mike Krüger became a pretty successful comedian. Can I say "stayed"? I am not sure as both him and Gottschalk are really not particularly good in here. Then again, as an actor, you can only be as good as the script lets you and the screenplay here was not a strike of genius at all. Oh yeah, Evelyn Hamann is in here too, but she is basically too good of an actress for this film and her character here who has zero interesting shades really.Tommy and Mike run an illegal radio station and the established stations become angry when they lose their listeners to the duo, so they try to find them and have them arrested. In order to avoid arrest, Tommy and Mike are constantly on the run from the police and switch costumes all the time. In the end, they dress up as two female teachers and nobody sees it is two men. In fact, the men have the hots for them and even if the two real teachers show up, people believe the real female teachers are the fake ones. Yeah, this wasn't a particularly funny film, but it is interesting to see how much music was in here. Music (even if he isn't a very talented musician himself) has always played a big role in Gottschalk's life/career. But the music is also not good enough to make this something more than a mediocre film. The two protagonists here have certainly more talent in other areas than acting and writing as it seems in this film. I see there are 2 or 3 more sequels, so this film must have been a success nonetheless and I definitely hope they stepped up their performances in these sequels. We shall see. As for this first film here: Not recommended.