Ants in the Pants

While many German producers often try to adapt American stories and rewrite them for the German market, the producers of "Harte Jungs" went another way. Due to marketing reasons this film was often referred to as "the german answer to American Pie", but this is quite untrue. Except for everyone constantly talking about sex without having any live experience the two movies have nothing in common. Both of them are great. But as it is a German film with a very limited budget and very young actors (Luise Helm who plays Lisa is barely 17) "Harte Jungs" is even better.

Permanently amusing and never boring, this film definitely belongs to germany's best movies this year, even if it does not match the sophisticated standards of the movie critics, but who cares. Perfect entertainment, very good actors and permanent laughter make this movie one of my favorites in the first half of 2000.

This was one of the first raunchy teen comedies I watched. I were in the first year of Engineering, and the VCD rental fellow recommended it as another American Pie. Me and my friends felt it was better than American Pie. Just watched the movie again last week and I have to say the initial perception still stands.

Agreed there is a lot of similarities with American Pie, but the film was much sweeter. Not as raunchy as American Pie. Also the story plot was much simpler. But still the film feels more personal.

Some of the lines in the movie was really funny. The performance by the leads and the bloke who played Red were pretty good. All in all Its worth a watch. I am really surprised by the low ratings of the movie.

It is often said, that Harte Jungs is called the German version of American pie, but in my opinion it is better because it is a german production. i think the film is very funny, and it is surprising how stupid flo is in this film. i think a boy who is fifteen years old couldn't know nothing about sex. it is very good that there is something like a happy-end.

Wow. I thought, Eskimo Limon was the most awful and embarrassing first-sex movie ever. But I had forgotten that Germany always tries to compete. In this case, the well-known German film producer Bernd Eichinger was successful in producing even worse crap. Harte Jungs is stupid, not believable and predictable, and above all: not funny. It's almost a tragedy that so many kids went to see this in Germany (and, I'm afraid, also Austria).

Tobias Schenke, 19, looks too nice to have no girlfriend and too ripe to be 15, and his character is too dumb to be true. Schenke tries real hard to make us believe that he doesn't know ANYthing about sex, but that doesn't help. Harte Jungs seems to be made by someone who watched Al Bundy and took him too seriously.

The best actors in the movie are Sissi Perlinger and Stefan Jürgens who play Schenke's semi-liberal parents. Perlinger and Jürgens are stand-up comedians who are not particularly talented in movie acting. Still, their performances are the `best' and `funniest' in comparison.

A complete failure.

Indeed, perhaps the German version of American Pie. Same kind of confused, inexperienced guy likes certain experienced girl etc. Has a few friends who want to help out. Gets himself into a few 'laughable' situations. Thats where the similarity ends.

This film simply doesn't have the well-written edge and performances that American Pie does. You really feel for Jason Biggs, but certainly not for this guy. At 15, you also know he's not going to get some anyway. So where exactly is this going? It's highly predictable and there's no real character development here. As for his talking Johnson - well, what's the point of that?

The film desperately wants to be American. With the exception of the few buildings you actually see, you'd hardly know this was in Germany. (Plus the fact that the dubbed version uses American accents.)

As for the girl he ends up with? No way. Why why why?

I watched the English dubbed version, so I suspect some things may have been lost in translation. This however does not make up for an essentially dull and predicable story.

A few comments here are saying this film is good. I see they're all German/Hungarian. It's nice to be patriotic and support your own films, but seriously - if you've seen American Pie - give this a miss.