GO FOR ZUCKER
Directed by: Dani Levy.
Produced by: Manuela Stehr.
Written by: Dani Levy & Holger Franke.
Director of Photography: Charly F. Koschnick.
Edited by: Elena Bromund.
Music by: Niki Reiser.
Released by: First Run.
Language: German with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Germany. 91 min. Not Rated.
With: Henry Hübchen, Hannelore Elsner, Udo Samel, Golda Tencer & Steffen Groth.

This crowd pleaser, said to be the first German-Jewish comedy since World War II, centers on Jaeckie Zucker (Henry Hübchen), a hard-drinking sixty-something pool shark up to his ears in debt. At the start of the film, Jaeckie, a former East German sports reporter, lies comatose in a hospital bed, reflecting on what might have been his last day on earth.

Flashback to the prior week: Zucker’s bank-manager son arrives at his parents’ apartment with the cops. Jaeckie, who can’t pay back the 44,500 euros loan, is threatened with jail time, but manages to finagle a few more days of freedom. His wife, Marlene (the wonderfully glib Hannelore Elsner), threatens to divorce him after his latest bar brawl leaves him bloody and beaten. But financial deliverance may be at hand when a telegram arrives announcing the death of Jaeckie’s mother. Per her will, his estranged brother Samuel is en-route from Frankfurt with her body for the funeral in Berlin. Jaeckie hasn’t seen neither since the Wall went up, nor does he identify with their Jewish customs and beliefs. But according to his mother’s wishes, he must make peace with his now Orthodox brother and sit shiva with him or lose out on the inheritance - the amount, a mystery.

What ensues is a hilarious and touching family reunion as Samuel and his sultry daughter, ultra-Orthodox son and scheming wife move in with the Zuckers for a week of mourning. Marlene rushes to “Jewishize” her home, Jaeckie accidentally gets Samuel high, and two kissing cousins sneak around the apartment. (This type of familial love may strike some as more queasy than comic, especially when another pair of too-close-for-comfort cousins emerge.)

But once a gambler, always a gambler. Jaeckie sees a local pool tournament as his only chance to get out of debt and sneaks out of shiva to attend the games. Will the local rabbi in charge of the inheritance find out? Will the two brothers break down the wall that has grown between them? Jaeckie’s frantic attempts and schemes to win his inheritance and the tournament do get a bit a repetitious, especially when one of his ploys seems borrowed from a formulaic Hollywood film. But pool tournament aside, the film amuses as long as it centers on this chaotic and fumbling family reconciliation. Deborah Lynn Blumberg
January 20, 2006