If for some reason the movie would have made the international market, this would have been a genius title! It's demented, it's an 80s bunk fantasy, and one main character actually bunks off. While there are some seasoned talents, the main acting is brutally amateurish, which presumably as hoped-for is quite charming though. From what is available, Sissy Kelling seems to be a working musician first, so this part does come natural to her, while Ingolf Lück effortlessly showcases his cabaret skills. This movie - just like the other 80s FRG big screen relic, "Hanging Out/Gib Gas Ich Will Spaß" - is another extension of the classic racket and junk tradition of W-German cinema, which started in the early 50ies, displaying the same obvious golden thread up until the 90s ("Manta Manta", e.g.): Love, Othello psychosis, cars, in fact an independent freespirit young female character, music, and stars. Not shabby here, against all odds extensively engaging Falco and Die Toten Hosen, and Limahl, all displaying a pleasant self-irony, with Pia Zadora, and The Flirts on the other end. Still, a rainy, perefectly grey train station goodbye scene, featuring Purple Schulz's, "Nur Mit Dir", is what does save this movie from a one-star rating! This scene is great, but futile in only a healf-hearted attempt to provide the movie with a serious nuance, only touching the entire set of troubles that comes with general military conscription. There are a couple of other scenes inhering that too, and maybe if you happen to have experience, male or female side, it will make you reflect on how that generation never really addressed how abnormal and offbeat that situation was, since you compare it to the standards not of today's youth, but, as always, with the harsh substandard of your parents, and grandparents. Also, the 80s were a ticking time-bomb in more than one way, with just another massive numbered age-group always lurking to take over from the one before! What was pop in 1984, seemed outdated only 10 months later, I don't even know, but I assume this movie was fated not to be a box-office-hit for that reason alone. Yet, movie historians get treated to a run around the Bavararia studios, including set-visits of "Das Boot" (ridiculously small), and, "Rote Erde". If you are in the know, you will also appreciate authenticity of actual circumstances, like, the Bundeswehr being massively slapsticked was absolute Zeitgeist, or, the most expensive clothing being your underwear.
Hindsight and nostalgia in this pov included, bottom line, this is still a trashy movie, but - keep an eye on props, sets, and other details, there's some subtle fun, and, I suppose messaging going in there. Hence with a grain of salt, or two, this movie does provide a quite accurate insight to mid 80s W-German way of life, you might want to watch it for that reason, or the music.
