Doll, Icke and the fat guy

Although Bomber (Tobi B.) seems rather harmless at first glance due to his short stature, the Berlin one-off is actually a real roughneck who doesn't avoid confrontation. Life has often thrown a spanner in the works for Bomber, but now, during his last tour as a courier driver, he finally wants to get the piece of the pie he thinks he deserves, albeit in a not entirely legal way. When he arrives in Paris, however, he finds that he's been had again. But fate has another surprise in store for him. This comes in the form of the fat Bruno (Matthias Scheuring), who never says a word, and the blind Europe (Stephanie Capetanides), who is pregnant after a one-night stand and now desperately wants to go to Berlin to find the father of her child. Rather unintentionally, Bomber finds himself confronted with his two fellow travelers, who initially get on his nerves. But by the end of the turbulent journey, he sees things through very different eyes.

Doll, Icke and the Fat Man is a wonderfully outlandish comedy, an unusual road movie that refreshingly sets itself apart from the mainstream with whimsical ideas and lovably quirky characters. No wonder that this more than successful feature film debut by Felix Stienz won the audience award at the Max Ophüls Film Festival in Saarbrücken and was also enthusiastically received at other festivals at home and abroad. Certainly, the humour is sometimes so peculiar that it will hardly be accessible to a wider audience. But if you are tired of the usual German comedy fare and feel like something that is simply different, you can't miss this film.

With his actors, the bon vivant Tobi B. and the enchanting Stephanie Capetanides, Stienz has already worked together on various short films in the past. The fact that he now gives these unused faces more opportunities to develop their talents, while better-known actors such as Alice Dwyer or Karoline Schuch have only taken on small guest roles, is just as much to the film's advantage as the renunciation of common dramaturgical patterns. Precisely because the comedy sets itself apart from the usual genre fare, Stienz succeeds brilliantly in portraying his characters with all their shortcomings, on the one hand somewhat exaggerated, on the other very true to life. And although Bomber in particular is not the most charming contemporary per se and it often seems as if he is trying to compensate for his small body size with an oversized ego, the characters always remain likeable and are never degraded to cheap joke figures.

Puppe, Icke und der Dicke is a real stroke of luck for German cinema. It's a comedy that doesn't allow itself to be squeezed into the tight corset of (supposedly) standard fare suitable for the masses, which ultimately allows it to leave a bigger and more lasting impression. And even if this film will only find a relatively small audience, it can at least boast of being by far the most original German comedy of the year. Absolutely worth seeing for friends of the slightly weirder arthouse fare!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp