Der Kaiser (2022) User Reviews

The story of a legend.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 13 January 2023]

The life and career of German footballing legend Franz Beckenbauer, from his humble beginnings to his stardom and place as one of the greats.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, it's quite well paced, it's never boring, it was interesting to see a film about this point in time, especially when it involved football. It is entirely in German, so you'll need the subtitles, unless you're fluent that is, it was easy to follow.

Klaus Steinbacher is excellent as Franz Beckenbauer, I think they did a great job casting him, he looks the part, but has the swagger and charisma needed to play the great man.

It's wonderfully authentic looking throughout, with amazing cars, fashions and sets. They also mix in some amazing real life footage, and boy did he score some outrageous goals.

The way they recreated the 1966 world cup final was terrific.

I really enjoyed it, 7/10.

Shallow bush-league biopic

[Ken_Buddha · 1/10 · 2 August 2023]

Franz Beckenbauer's personal manager Robert Schwan once said "there are only two intelligent men in this world - Schwan am and Schwan pm". Unfortunately, his famous client seemed to believe that he himself was even smarter, reinforced early in his career by some cheeky journalist who coined the nickname "Kaiser Franz". And "Der Kaiser" is another piece of promotional material for a talented footballer whose dark sides, if they are mentioned at all, are treated like they were harmless pranks committed by a lovable rogue. Beckenbauer's shady role in Germany's 2006 world cup bid or his ridiculously ignorant rants in favor of the 2022 Qatar "Qatastrophe" are not part of the plot; it ends with the 1990 world cup in Italy. Overall the movie feels like a succession of cheap comedy skids with questionable casting choices, shameless overacting, chronological errors and way too much hero worshiping.