Werner and the Wizard of Booze
Trailer · Background Material · Pictures · Official Site
directed by: Niki List, Gerhard Hahn, Michael Schaack
produced by: Bernd Eichinger
starring: Rötger Feldmann, Meret Becker, Ludger Pistor
running time: 93 mins.
About the Film:
WERNER is a comic character invented by German artist Rötger Feldmann (aka "Brösel"). To a large extend, Werner's adventures reflect the life of Brösel and his brother Andi. Werner is a loveable slob who is at constant war with authority. Brösel published the first Werner comic in 1981 and since then, the Werner phenomenon has grown to include 12 comic books, four feature films and tons of merchandising articles. In 2010, the fifth Werner movie was released.
Synopsis:
The WERNER phenomenon is spreading around the world! From the darkest jungle to remotest Siberia everybody is laughing over WERNER. Children are being named after WERNER in skyrocketing numbers. But what does WERNER's creator do when the cruel tyrant's frozen frown won't thaw to the slightest smile and therefore the laugh guarantee can't be kept?
Then Brösel has an ingenious idea. What is everybody crazy about? Soccer! He converts a northern market square into a soccer stadium and WERNER is the commentator. Right from the kick-off, there is panic and chaos. By the end of the first half the whole market square is a wreck. The ceramics stall flattened, the flower stall flattened, the fruit stall flattened, but everybody is having great fun. It's a wild game.
And the nasty tyrant? He doesn't even crack a smile. Alas Brösel faces the same fate as his predecessors: Buster Keaton dead, Charlie Chaplin dead, Laurel&Hardy dead. The executioner's axe is already poised as Brösel awakes from his worst nightmare. But the real world isn't much more promising. WERNER's adventures are to be filmed and Brösel could hit the jackpot. But the unscrupulous producer wants his soul. Brösel needs an inspiration but he doesn't have a clue. He recalls a tip from an old friend: "Draw something from your youth, that always works!" There was one thing... Right! WERNER's years of apprenticeship were not years of milk and honey.
WERNER has a hard time. As a plumber's apprentice he is treated like a slave by his boss Röhrich and foreman Eckat. Then as Mrs. Hansen's radiator bursts and the whole house is flooded, all hell breaks loose. In the midst of it, boss Röhrich gets his head stuck in the toilet bowl. WERNER and Eckat can only watch helplessly - and collect entrance fees from onlookers - as boss Röhrich tumbles out of a window, complete with toilet bowl. But that's not all. The building site is a chaos. The plumbing should have been finished a long time ago. WERNER is working as hard as he can: connect the gas, lug the radiator to the fourth floor, fetch beer for Eckat. There is just enough time to squeeze in a little experiment. WERNER fills a balloon with a mixture of gas and oxygen. Of course he forgets to close the gas valve in the rush to have a beer with Eckat and the others on an invite from the brick-layers. It turns out that no one other than the cigar smoking boss Röhrich himself ignites the balloon. In the explosion the whole top floor is blown off. Luckily for him, the apprentice WERNER spends the next day attending courses at the vocational school.
Smiling radiantly, Brösel takes his bundled-up drawings to the post office. Done at last! Unfortunately the postal clerk commits a fatal mistake and sends Brösels drawings to Siberia. But the producer is keeping the pressure on Brösel. Once again Brösel is back to the hard life of a lonely cartoonist. How about tearing down the race course with a Horex motorbike. Yeah, that's it. Brösel draws WERNER's adventure at the inspection station, where he presents his new salami blinker. But the damned inspector doesn't want to pass his blinker, nor his exhaust, nor his carburettor, nor...nor...nor... Overjoyed, Brösel decides to take his masterpiece to Munich personally on his Horex. En route, in a tunnel, he smashes into a truck and ends up in a hospital. Wrapped from head to toe in a cast, he has no other choice but to tap into his cigarette hardened arteries and draw with the tar. It's logical that WERNER's next adventure takes place in a hospital.
WERNER craves a little peace and tranquillity and a beer every now and then. But nurses are constantly butting in and making his life miserable. WERNER can only do one thing - he has to beat the doctor's at their own game. He floods the hospital with his reserve supplies of beer and drugs the doctors with their own dope. After his mad flight from the hospital, he can only think of one thing: finally ride his motorbike with his friends and drink lots of beer. Then there's trouble.
After a lengthy anguish, Brösel can finally booze it up at the opening night of his own film. But the unscrupulous film producer is there, impatiently awaiting the next WERNER film.
