Guys and Balls Reviews

If there's a gay cliche who doesn't flounce through this feel-good German comedy, he must have been out of town when the casting call went out, but its fundamental good nature is tough to resist. Ecki (Maximilian Bruckner), a baker's son from small-town Boldrup, has loved soccer since he was a child. Now in his early twenties, he plays goalie on a local team with his longtime rival, Udo (Carlo Ljubek), and is pursued by the gorgeous Cordula (Judith Hoersch), who's had a crush on him since they were kids and most recently dyed her pubic hair red and trimmed it into the shape of a heart in hopes of impressing him. Terrifying him is more like it: Ecki is just beginning to come to terms with the idea that he's gay when he's outed by his teammates and made the scapegoat for their losing streak. Humiliated and angry, Ecki hops a bus to Dortmund, the blue-collar city where his sister Susanne (Lisa Maria Potthoff) works as an obstetrical nurse. His plan: to start an all-gay soccer team and beat the Boldrup team on their home field in four weeks' time. First he finds an unused field whose homophobic owner (Rolf Zacher) agrees to let him use it for a month before realizing that a pack of fairies will be sullying the memory of illustrious footballers past. Then, armed with a local guide to gay bars, Ecki and Susanne go cruising through a sea of light-in-the-loafers stereotypes, recruiting closeted Jurgen (Andreas Schmidt), swishy falafel maker Ercin (Billey Demirtas), who loves soccer players (especially dreamy David Beckham), three motorcycle-riding leather daddies (Markus John, Charly Hubner, Christian Berkel) and Sven (David Rott), the foxiest nurse on Susanne's ward. An open call for players turns up the usual 6-foot-tall transvestites, but also produces wiry gendernaut Martin (Michael Von Burg), who worries that being a lesbian will disqualify him; a pair of Brazilians (Edesson Batista De Jesus, Edilton Pereira Da Cruz) who lace their game with capoeira moves; and Klaus (Hans Low), a closet heterosexual with eyes for Susanne. The complications and twists of fate are utterly predictable, but director Sherry Hormann and screenwriter Benedikt Gollhardt treat their plucky band of odd men out with such affection that it's hard not to root for their right to play footie with the straight boys.