"Echte Wiener - Die Sackbauer-Saga" is an Austrian movie from 2008, so this one will have its 10th anniversary next year. The language is German, but the accents are really thick, so as a German native speaker from Germany you will also maybe have a hard time in understanding the dialogues. The director and also one of the writers is Kurt Ockermueller and he also worked on the Sackbauer television series from several decades earlier that gained a bit of a cult status. But why after 30 years almost would they return to the Sackbauer universe. Well one reason may have been that lead actor Merkatz decided to pick up on this role again because with the recent death of director Franz Antel, the Bockerer series was over, so Merkatz had time for other projects. This one here probably has more comedy than the Bockerer stuff, so there is a parallel to the somewhat funny Austrian crime movies starring Hader for example. Or to many other pretty good recent Austrian films that manage convincingly to combine drama with comedy.
Anyway, back to this one here. I must say that I have not (yet) seen the 1970s show this is based on, but admittedly this 110-minute film also does not get me too curious about it to be honest. Merkatz was fine and it's good they got many actors from back then to reprise their roles, but I never managed to develop great interest in the characters or in what would happen to them next. So perhaps you need to be an Austrian, maybe even from Vienna to appreciate this one here. Or maybe you need to have seen the series and, even better, have loved it. I can see many people call me a stupid Piefke now, but I have to give this film a thumbs-down and I genuinely hope the next will be better, even if my hopes are not particularly high. Watch something else instead.
Anyway, back to this one here. I must say that I have not (yet) seen the 1970s show this is based on, but admittedly this 110-minute film also does not get me too curious about it to be honest. Merkatz was fine and it's good they got many actors from back then to reprise their roles, but I never managed to develop great interest in the characters or in what would happen to them next. So perhaps you need to be an Austrian, maybe even from Vienna to appreciate this one here. Or maybe you need to have seen the series and, even better, have loved it. I can see many people call me a stupid Piefke now, but I have to give this film a thumbs-down and I genuinely hope the next will be better, even if my hopes are not particularly high. Watch something else instead.
