Saw this one recently on German TV and for a long time I haven't seen entertaiment AND content matching so nicely. Historical and emotional at the same time. It's all about the money - not just today. How does it say in the movie: Money is politics. That's so right. Actors are great! Story is tight and even my students would follow the program with great interest. Full recommondation!
3 Reviews
A thought provoking piece
veronicaleandrez14 March 2022
A bit of a missed opportunity
Horst_In_Translation28 November 2019
Warning: Spoilers
The award-winning "Das Wunder von Wörgl", which roughly means "The Wörgl miracle", or "Shillings from Heaven" is a 2018 movie that was produced by no less than four countries, basically all German-speaking countries in Europe, and it is of course also in the German language, although if "Austrian German" existed as an option, this would be written here on imdb for what the language is. But this is really no surprise as the cast is mostly Austrian and this is also where the film is set, which youcan already see from the location in the title, which does not only sound Austrian, but actually is. The director, however, is Urs Egger, a really experienced filmmaker from Switzerland, who has been active in the industry for a long time. The wwriter is Thomas Reider, not a rookie, but certainly not equally experienced as the man behind the camera. An alternate title here is "Die Geldmacher", which sounds a bit like "Die Fälscher", so it is kinda fitting that the central character here is played by Karl Markovics, who is really among the most known German-speaking actors these days, especially abroad because for example he also acted in Wes Anderson movies. Really nice to see what a great areer he had and is still having after seeing him when he was really young over 20 years ago in Kommissar Rex. Same for Moretti, who has his breakthrough on the same show. Anyway, back to this film we got here. Sadly I must say that overall I was a bit disappointed here, or maybe even more than just a bit because in theory it sounds like a pretty promising project to me.
Markovics, Lust and Altenberger are actors I like and the time when this is set is also one that I always found interesting, namely the first half of the 20th century, which already shows you the political turmoil this is about. Or actually isn't because politics are rarely a great factor here if we refer to the Nazi years in Germany (and Austria). Instead there are more than just a few references to the bad state of the economy with Black Friday happening a while ago and this is really the core background for this film because it is all about money. Unemployment and basically everything else linked to economy arereally not in a good place at all at that point and this also includes the city of Wörgl in Tyrol, which is not as small as you could think, oh well at least not today. Nobody really wants responsibility to be in charge of mastering the situation, so eventually Mr. Unterguggenberger is elected mayor and the only explanation is that really nobody else wanted to do it, which he basically said himself at some point. But Unterguggenberger (love the name) is a man of his word and so he tries to get things going and come up with a change for the better. This is when he starts coming up with an alternate currency really and this would be certain kind of bills they printed and used to pay for services in the city. Quickly afterward, thanks to this invention things are getting better financially in Wörgl and it turns out quite a success. However, this also causes some mayhem because this is where the powerful hear about it and certainly they are not amused that the fellas in Wörgl simply got their own currency. Or did they really? This is basically for the court to decide at the very end and you could say the decision they come up with is a pretty fair one. In-between, we also get a father-son story that includes some struggling and coping, when the plot movies away from the money issue for a little while. Oh well, I was not convinced sadly. Overall, it feels like nothing here that wasn't done before and it is a bit tough for me to come up with valid reasons why you should watch this movie. Maybe I also struggled more than I want to admit with the Austrian accent that was also for a German native pretty difficult to understand at times. Still given the cast they had at their disposal and also the fact that this was based on a real character, I thought they could have come up with a much better film here. It had more lengths than it should have for a 90-minute movie and some characters (or I should say their actors) deserved better material than they were given. So for me, it is a thumbs-down all in all. I can see why this film really went under the radar. Not recommended.
Markovics, Lust and Altenberger are actors I like and the time when this is set is also one that I always found interesting, namely the first half of the 20th century, which already shows you the political turmoil this is about. Or actually isn't because politics are rarely a great factor here if we refer to the Nazi years in Germany (and Austria). Instead there are more than just a few references to the bad state of the economy with Black Friday happening a while ago and this is really the core background for this film because it is all about money. Unemployment and basically everything else linked to economy arereally not in a good place at all at that point and this also includes the city of Wörgl in Tyrol, which is not as small as you could think, oh well at least not today. Nobody really wants responsibility to be in charge of mastering the situation, so eventually Mr. Unterguggenberger is elected mayor and the only explanation is that really nobody else wanted to do it, which he basically said himself at some point. But Unterguggenberger (love the name) is a man of his word and so he tries to get things going and come up with a change for the better. This is when he starts coming up with an alternate currency really and this would be certain kind of bills they printed and used to pay for services in the city. Quickly afterward, thanks to this invention things are getting better financially in Wörgl and it turns out quite a success. However, this also causes some mayhem because this is where the powerful hear about it and certainly they are not amused that the fellas in Wörgl simply got their own currency. Or did they really? This is basically for the court to decide at the very end and you could say the decision they come up with is a pretty fair one. In-between, we also get a father-son story that includes some struggling and coping, when the plot movies away from the money issue for a little while. Oh well, I was not convinced sadly. Overall, it feels like nothing here that wasn't done before and it is a bit tough for me to come up with valid reasons why you should watch this movie. Maybe I also struggled more than I want to admit with the Austrian accent that was also for a German native pretty difficult to understand at times. Still given the cast they had at their disposal and also the fact that this was based on a real character, I thought they could have come up with a much better film here. It had more lengths than it should have for a 90-minute movie and some characters (or I should say their actors) deserved better material than they were given. So for me, it is a thumbs-down all in all. I can see why this film really went under the radar. Not recommended.
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