What we have here is "Ein Paradies für Tiere", which of course means "A Paradise for Animals" as you may have guessed from the title of my review already. This was released back in 2005, which means that it had its 15th anniversary already last year, so not a new film by any means and given how bad it is I really wonder why it is still on national television these days despite its age. Your GEZ money at work folks. Showing this today in the afternoon cost ARD, MDR and the othes exactly zero bucks. But let's take a look at the basics: This runs for slightly under 1.5 hours as these films usually do. A bit of a change would be compared to all the other stuff shown on similar times and occasions that this is not a fully German film, but a co-production between Austria and Germany. Fittingly, the director is from Tyrol and the writer from Vienna and they were both already over 50 when this got made, so much older now even. Peter Weissflog was the director and he was almost 60 even, which means that now he is comfortably in his 70s. And retired. That is definitely a good thing because his most recent projects included Komödienstadel and, even worse, adaptations of Inga Lindström and Utta Danella literature. In other words, unwatchable stuff. A bit sad to see that this is the stuff somebody is working on despite having started their career in the 1980s already. Shows 100% that there is absolutely no artistic integrity, all about the money. The writer is Peter Mazzuchelli, sounds Italian, but he was born in Austria as well and has worked all his life on German-language projects. He has not been as prolific as his director here, but also started his career in the 1980s already. Also retired now it seems, which is no surprise because he has/had his 70th birthday this year. With Julia - Eine ungewöhnliche Frau, Das Traumschiff and Kreuzfahrt ins Glück being his defining projects, it's certainly also a good thing that he is not working anymore I would say. So with these two in charge, this project was really doomed from the very start.
The production company here is Degn Film and I kinda wonder if this would be the Austrian equivalent to Degeto. At least the first three letters are the same. or of there is any other connection between these two companies. I don't know. Bot looking here on imdb at everything that Degn Film has been a part of, it seems they were not half as bad as Degeto (probably not even 5%) and that applies to both quality and quantity. Not that they are a revelation either honestly. Nobody is as bad as Degeto. Okay, now let's take a look at the cast: The man you see on the photo here is Francis Fulton-Smith. To some extent, it was maybe his name that kept him in the industry for this long, but it is also a bit of an unfair thing to say because here and there he dished out a quality performance and project. Something fairly challeneging. In other words, the exact opposite of what we have here. Unfortunately, films like this one, stupid romance stories with unsuccessful comedy and pseudo drama are what he did the most and it makes it really difficult for me to respect him as an actor and I really would like to because I have seen that he can act. Actually, said photo here on imdb is really telling what to expect here. Stupid romance nonsense that dares to tell us that it wants to be taken seriously in terms of realism and authenticity. While at the same time offering 0% credibility and artistic impact. The woman on the left is Austrian actress Susanne Michel. Nobody really knows her anymore nowadays and being a co-lead in a film like this is basically the best she could achieve, even if she is still active today and has been in over 50 movies. With her absence of talent in this film we have here I must say I am not one bit sad that I did not come across her in other projects. Or at least don't remember.
The male protagonist's daughter here was played by the young Kimberly Rydell (another English-sounding actor from the German-speaking territories here), fairly cute back then, fairly attractive nowadays and her body of work is not as bad as you would imagine. Admittedly, she also has not acted that much, even if she still keeps trying, but this film here is probably her by far worst career effort. Okay, it could be the Hörbiger film too. Other than that, I'm okay with her body of work. Not too much to say about the rest of the cast, some of them experienced, but no truly familiar faces. The one exception would be Herbert Fux, another Austrian. Not a star either, but somewhat recognizable and it's pretty sad that this mess of a movie was one of his final career efforts. Okay, not very final. But his character, who is a bit of a crazy animal/dog-loving person, was nothing other than a bad parody. No actor could have made this work. Now let's elaborate a bit on the plot and story here and what it was that made this a really bad film. There are many reasons. The key story is as bad as small individual moments. One thing you always find is that really the two lovebirds initially are not exactly friends, but argue or dislike each other. Here it's probably the former when the woman says that the man cannot keep all these dogs. And they seemed to have known each other before the film if I am not mistaken.
There were two very cringeworthy moments especially between the two in this film. Actually, many others, but I will mention those now: The first would be when the woman has problems with her car and the man asks her if he should pick her up ("abschleppen"). Enough said about this "funny" little play on words. Cringe is real. By the way, the woman seems to have a great deal of car trouble in this film. We should be really glad that cars are not broken as often in real life as they are in these movies. Interesting inclusion nonetheless. The self-confident, independent woman (symbolized through the car) needs help and the only one who can give it to her (no pun intended) is be the male love interest. The second was this moment when they were closer to each other already and after some talking both keep doing something with their mobile phones. Again, so cringeworthy and not funny. Let me add here that I found the female protagonist very unlikable. She says the best choice would be to kill the dog. Yeah, right? Amazing doctor honestly. In reality, she would be a scam artist with this suggestion honestly because of course, if the man , has the money, they should try an operation. Everything is better than to surrender and give up on the dog. What a cold-blooded b..rat. Anyway, that scene with the dog chasing the rabbit was really sublime pseudo drama of the worst kind. In reality, the dog would be dead or no operation could save it, but here in this ARD world, of course it is saved. Back to the female protagonist: It is always cringeworthy with these films how the male has to beg for the woman's attention until she finally accepts him. Why is it like that? Because these films are for women mostly. I applaud every women who sees through this charade. This is also why we are supposed to see the woman as the great prize here for FFS's character. Why he has to apologize to her for making accurate statements. Unreal stuff.
Everybody must be happy though, so the initially not amused daughter gets her love interest as well, a local boy. One who is not too happy about working for his father because that one kills animals for the food industry, but the boy rather wants to work at a hotel. Conflict throughout the entire film because daddy isn't happy and what happens in the end? He goes to his son and just says that it's no big deal and he can do whatever he likes. They are basically making fun of their own stupid stories here this way, all for the sake of a happy ending. The kiss between the two leads is absolutely not enough. Oh and a key story in the second half involves animal rights activism. In general, always a great inclusion, but here the exact opposite. How they were freeing these animals, then getting the press involved to finally save them all was ridiculously unrealistic, fake and for the sake of it. In my opinion, films like this really hurt the cause way more than they help it. Why? Because you could feel that nobody here, especially not the writer, cared one bit about the issue at hand, how animals are really the weakest target group out there (in the truest sense of the word) and all they cared for is making this garbage movie and appealing to those who are as simple as this movie, who have forgotten all about it an hour later. Gross.
And by the way, if things aren't bad enough already, it must be said that the exact same people here, both director and writer, made a sequel to this movie two years later. When it was obvious that this one was one too many already. Absolutely disgusting again. No respect for everybody who returned for the sequel. As for this first film, the music is also as pseudo-important as always as if this was some deep and meaningful story we have here. The acting was never really credible, also the child acting. One example would be the last sentence the child actress says to her character's mother before they enter the car, about authority etc. They want us to think the girl is smart, but it felt all fake once again. This film here used horses, piglets, dogs and many other animals to appeal to the simple-minded, to those too simple to see how much the story and everything else really sucks. Almost impossible for me to find quality here honestly. One okay inclusion was that they had a beagle among these animals they freed because beagles are indeed a special dog breed that is used (too) frequently at laboratories because they are very good choices physically. But yeah, this pressure from the press (never recognized how close these words are, but very fitting) then resulting in the bad guy to basically give up on his business cannot be saved by my favorite dog breed. Abysmal film.
The production company here is Degn Film and I kinda wonder if this would be the Austrian equivalent to Degeto. At least the first three letters are the same. or of there is any other connection between these two companies. I don't know. Bot looking here on imdb at everything that Degn Film has been a part of, it seems they were not half as bad as Degeto (probably not even 5%) and that applies to both quality and quantity. Not that they are a revelation either honestly. Nobody is as bad as Degeto. Okay, now let's take a look at the cast: The man you see on the photo here is Francis Fulton-Smith. To some extent, it was maybe his name that kept him in the industry for this long, but it is also a bit of an unfair thing to say because here and there he dished out a quality performance and project. Something fairly challeneging. In other words, the exact opposite of what we have here. Unfortunately, films like this one, stupid romance stories with unsuccessful comedy and pseudo drama are what he did the most and it makes it really difficult for me to respect him as an actor and I really would like to because I have seen that he can act. Actually, said photo here on imdb is really telling what to expect here. Stupid romance nonsense that dares to tell us that it wants to be taken seriously in terms of realism and authenticity. While at the same time offering 0% credibility and artistic impact. The woman on the left is Austrian actress Susanne Michel. Nobody really knows her anymore nowadays and being a co-lead in a film like this is basically the best she could achieve, even if she is still active today and has been in over 50 movies. With her absence of talent in this film we have here I must say I am not one bit sad that I did not come across her in other projects. Or at least don't remember.
The male protagonist's daughter here was played by the young Kimberly Rydell (another English-sounding actor from the German-speaking territories here), fairly cute back then, fairly attractive nowadays and her body of work is not as bad as you would imagine. Admittedly, she also has not acted that much, even if she still keeps trying, but this film here is probably her by far worst career effort. Okay, it could be the Hörbiger film too. Other than that, I'm okay with her body of work. Not too much to say about the rest of the cast, some of them experienced, but no truly familiar faces. The one exception would be Herbert Fux, another Austrian. Not a star either, but somewhat recognizable and it's pretty sad that this mess of a movie was one of his final career efforts. Okay, not very final. But his character, who is a bit of a crazy animal/dog-loving person, was nothing other than a bad parody. No actor could have made this work. Now let's elaborate a bit on the plot and story here and what it was that made this a really bad film. There are many reasons. The key story is as bad as small individual moments. One thing you always find is that really the two lovebirds initially are not exactly friends, but argue or dislike each other. Here it's probably the former when the woman says that the man cannot keep all these dogs. And they seemed to have known each other before the film if I am not mistaken.
There were two very cringeworthy moments especially between the two in this film. Actually, many others, but I will mention those now: The first would be when the woman has problems with her car and the man asks her if he should pick her up ("abschleppen"). Enough said about this "funny" little play on words. Cringe is real. By the way, the woman seems to have a great deal of car trouble in this film. We should be really glad that cars are not broken as often in real life as they are in these movies. Interesting inclusion nonetheless. The self-confident, independent woman (symbolized through the car) needs help and the only one who can give it to her (no pun intended) is be the male love interest. The second was this moment when they were closer to each other already and after some talking both keep doing something with their mobile phones. Again, so cringeworthy and not funny. Let me add here that I found the female protagonist very unlikable. She says the best choice would be to kill the dog. Yeah, right? Amazing doctor honestly. In reality, she would be a scam artist with this suggestion honestly because of course, if the man , has the money, they should try an operation. Everything is better than to surrender and give up on the dog. What a cold-blooded b..rat. Anyway, that scene with the dog chasing the rabbit was really sublime pseudo drama of the worst kind. In reality, the dog would be dead or no operation could save it, but here in this ARD world, of course it is saved. Back to the female protagonist: It is always cringeworthy with these films how the male has to beg for the woman's attention until she finally accepts him. Why is it like that? Because these films are for women mostly. I applaud every women who sees through this charade. This is also why we are supposed to see the woman as the great prize here for FFS's character. Why he has to apologize to her for making accurate statements. Unreal stuff.
Everybody must be happy though, so the initially not amused daughter gets her love interest as well, a local boy. One who is not too happy about working for his father because that one kills animals for the food industry, but the boy rather wants to work at a hotel. Conflict throughout the entire film because daddy isn't happy and what happens in the end? He goes to his son and just says that it's no big deal and he can do whatever he likes. They are basically making fun of their own stupid stories here this way, all for the sake of a happy ending. The kiss between the two leads is absolutely not enough. Oh and a key story in the second half involves animal rights activism. In general, always a great inclusion, but here the exact opposite. How they were freeing these animals, then getting the press involved to finally save them all was ridiculously unrealistic, fake and for the sake of it. In my opinion, films like this really hurt the cause way more than they help it. Why? Because you could feel that nobody here, especially not the writer, cared one bit about the issue at hand, how animals are really the weakest target group out there (in the truest sense of the word) and all they cared for is making this garbage movie and appealing to those who are as simple as this movie, who have forgotten all about it an hour later. Gross.
And by the way, if things aren't bad enough already, it must be said that the exact same people here, both director and writer, made a sequel to this movie two years later. When it was obvious that this one was one too many already. Absolutely disgusting again. No respect for everybody who returned for the sequel. As for this first film, the music is also as pseudo-important as always as if this was some deep and meaningful story we have here. The acting was never really credible, also the child acting. One example would be the last sentence the child actress says to her character's mother before they enter the car, about authority etc. They want us to think the girl is smart, but it felt all fake once again. This film here used horses, piglets, dogs and many other animals to appeal to the simple-minded, to those too simple to see how much the story and everything else really sucks. Almost impossible for me to find quality here honestly. One okay inclusion was that they had a beagle among these animals they freed because beagles are indeed a special dog breed that is used (too) frequently at laboratories because they are very good choices physically. But yeah, this pressure from the press (never recognized how close these words are, but very fitting) then resulting in the bad guy to basically give up on his business cannot be saved by my favorite dog breed. Abysmal film.
