| Guys & Balls | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 13 reviews)
Sales Rank: 26141
Category: DVD
Actors: Eileen Eilender, Leon Breitenborn, Dietmar Baer, Saskia Vester, Anna Koesling
Director: Sherry Horman
Publisher: Liberation Ent
Studio: Liberation Ent
Brand: BRUCKNER/ROTT/POTTHOFF
Label: Liberation Ent
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: German (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 102 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: GEPD79542D
UPC: 796019795425
EAN: 0796019795425
ASIN: B000GBEWI4
Release Date: September 5, 2006
Theatrical Release Date: 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Sparks fly when a forcibly outed goalie assembles an all-gay soccer team to challenge his old hetero club in a hilarious grudge match. Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 06/17/2008 Starring: Dietmar Bar Maximilian Bruckner Run time: 102 minutes Rating: R
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Soccer Satire November 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Guys and Balls"
Soccer Satire
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
Some of you may remember that I wrote about this film in my article on "What's New at the Movies". Guys and Balls (Here TV! And Genius Entertainment) released it on DVD on September 5 and it was worth waiting to see. Here is a parody of those macho athletes who keep us swooning.
Sweet, dear Ecki works in his family's bakery and lives in the closet. He is also the goalie on his town's soccer team. When his team loses the big team and Ecki is discovered flirting with another player, his teammates throw him off of the team. It then becomes his goal to form an all gay team that will be a threat to all of the "heteros" on the soccer field. With his sister as his helping hand, he scours the bars and finally assembles the wildest team ever seen on a playing field. There is a threesome of leather "daddies", a lovely queen, and a straight guy who lusts for an adorable nurse. When this team comes together to play the final game, the straight team has to deal with the fabulosity it has never seen before. You root for and laugh at the team--the movie makes you cheer.
The ragtag team is determined to show that "sistahs" can play ball every bit as wonderfully as its straight counterpart. In attempting to create the tea, we have one of the funniest comedies we have ever had, Yet the movie is not camp as it easily could have been, Gay sensibility is glaringly missing but that does not stop one from having a good time. There are great one liners but there is also a lot of "shtick".
If any of you have noticed, sports have become a topic for gay film recently probably because there are so few openly gay professional athletes. Ecki's French kissing another guy is the catalyst that gets the story going and once it starts, there is no turning back. The team is amazing--there is the Turkish waiter who dreams of soccer great Beckham, the thin soccer player who in reality is a girl, two very sexy Brazilians and a straight bookseller who is the nelliest of the group. Then there is the threesome of leather "daddies" who Ecki found at a bar in the dungeon and Sven, a male nurse, whom Ecki has a crush on but who feels that Ecki has built this team for personal vengeance. The former star coach of the team may not be homophobic but surely is alcoholic. With a team like this, we are bound to have a few hearty guffaws.
The stakes are high as the guys take to the field for
their final game. Soccer fans are fanatical in Germany andEcki knows that it is this game which can give him back the respect he yearns for as well as his place as an athlete.
The movie does not preach or espouse. It has one purpose and that is to entertain. The ensemble cast turns in wonderful performances even if there is not anything really new here. It is simply a film to enjoy and to make you feel good. Some of it is old hat but so what? It's
great fun and isn't that what really matters?
One reviewer that I read stated that the movie has nothing going for--it's in German so it has subtitles, it is about a tired story and it is full of cliche but "this jubilant, exhilarating film works...It is a big, fat fantastic crowd pleaser". It is classy and witty, fresh and engaging and it makes us laugh. What a joy!
Great Triumph of Demons November 24, 2008
This movie shows the underdog beating his own soccer team, and the demons he has inside about being gay.
Fun Movie January 18, 2008
This is the first gay movie that I can actually say I have fun watching. This is a German movie with subtitles. It is made on the style of "The Mighty Ducks", a fun family movie, unfortunately not for the kiddies because of the subject matter. It was surprising to me to see a production company name in the credits, a subsidiary of a major studio associated with family type movies. I suppose I recognized the style.
The story still the same old theme of coming out and being alienated by peers, friends, and family members. But the line up of all these oddball characters make us forget for a moment the pain, makes us laugh, and root for the winners.
Ecki is a young man who works in a bakery with his father and mother in a small town in Germany. He is a goalie for the local soccer team. One night after a loss by the goalie, they still went ahead and celebrate. One of the other players, Udo, resented the fact that Ecki has lost the match for them. Ecki gets drunk looses his cool and kisses one of the other member of his team. He then gets chastised by his entire team and friends, town people, and his own father. In a moment of anger, he challenges Udo that a gay team will beat them, and sets a date for game.
Because his family are not too happy with him, he moves to a big city, where his sister (a nurse) lives and works. After coming out to Susane, he tells about his challenge in his hometown, and starts recruiting players for his gay team. He meets this other good looking young male nurse, Vater, at Susane's job, and he comes out to him and wants to join the team. A relationship flourish from this.
Ecki finds all sort of gay men, from hardcore bikers, two former professional African soccer players, an Arab working in a fast food restaurant, a washed out professional soccer player who owns the soccer field where they train as ball players. Relationships, friendships, bonding, all grow to make these people good enough team players. There are ups and downs but at the end they come out stronger. The final date arrives and the gay team wins the match with both guys facing each other, Udo and Ecki. Ecki regains his face in the town by blocking Udo's kick and the gay winning the match.
At the end, Vater and Ecki hold hands. Ecki introduces Vater to his father. Ecki's father accepts Ecki as gay. And the movie ends with a happy ending.
This is great movie, again with a style of a family movie. Here are the underdogs fighting a better and stronger team. With all the screwballs, their coach, the former washed out professional player, puts character and discipline into men, re-examining his own life, accepting at the end he is not a looser. All of the men are ordinary looking guys making the movie a bit more realistic. Even though the two main characters, Vater and Ecki are cute, they are not extraordinarily handsome like most other coming out movies actors. "Summer Storm" has a similar theme where a rowing gay team (which exist in real life in Berlin) beats a straight rowing team. I enjoyed this movie.
This Movie Scores September 4, 2007
Director Berry Hormann's German film "Guys & Balls" does for the gay community what the recent American movie "Pride" did for African Americans. Ecki (Maximilian Bruckner) is a blond, goodlooking soccer player who gets drummed off his local small-town team when his arch rival Udo discovers him kissing another male. All hell breaks loose from all sides including his father who is not going to accept the fact that his son is gay. The director treats the subject with enough humor for everyone. The father early on goes through Ecki's closet and discovers a loud shirt that "all of them wear," only to be reminded by his wife that the shirt belongs to him. There is a lot of locker-room humor that takes place in the locker room. Ecki's gay soccer team-- after getting kicked off his team for being gay, he organizes a group of motley gay men to challenge the heteros in a soccer match-- replaces naked girley photos in their lockers with naked men photos as well as other assorted sordid items.
Although the ending is predictable and some of the characters are a tad stereotypical-- the three leather bikers, the effeminate character, closeted guy, et al., there are certainly touching moments. One of the bikers, for instance, has been forced out of his small son's life by an angry ex-wife; and the son of course misses his dad. Ecki's sister, for the most part except for her screaming at one point that all the goodlooking men are gay and therefore off limits, is very supportive of her brother, allowing him to move in with her when he leaves home to round up a new soccer team.
Anyone who has ever marched in a gay pride parade, for instance, and felt his or her adrenalin flow when the gay-haters are shouting from the sidelines will love this movie. As one of the characters says, "it has to do with respect."
 Harmless Fun August 4, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Take "Bend it Like Beckham" and substitute the young girls for an all-gay ( almost) men's soccer team. Nothing particularly original here--with a most predictable ending. Guess who wins the soccer game between this all-gay team and the very homophobic former team of the lead character? But it is by no means a disaster. The gay stereotypes are all over the place, but this movie never really intended to say anything particularly important. So if you want a sport's comedy with a focus, of sorts, on the gay community--this is it. But don't expect to learn very much or to see the interaction of characters with any sort of depth to them.
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