Macho Man

In the same year when some smartass in Hollywood thought that it would be a great idea to build an action movie around a medal-winning athlete and thus gave rise to the absurd legend of Gymkata, a certain hustler in West Germany took a similar path. The result was the less delirious but otherwise similarly irrational flick Macho Man, which is regarded as a cult obscurity in Germany and whose title tells you everything you need to know. Here we have in front of the camera a bunch of non-actors led by the German lightweight boxing champion and European silver-medallist René Weller and the European karate champion and German kickboxing champion Peter Althof (who later worked as a professional bodyguard). Bea Fiedler rounds out the line-up alongside other less prominent athletes in supporting roles. Though Fiedler is not an athlete, her assets are duly put on display in the opening title montage, where each of the actors shows off their best form, which in the case of this former playmate and actress from a number of erotic comedies means that she simply shows her tits. The characters portrayed by these “actors” are crammed into a straightforward B-movie narrative that can be summed up as follows: There’s a professional boxer who is a great guy and a professional karate master who is a horrible guy. They incidentally prevent a bank robbery together and then happen to fall for the same airhead blonde. Since they’re both overflowing with testosterone, they are initially tense with each other, but then a rich brunette comes to practice karate and they're off. Then there’s a gang of drug dealers whom the two tough guys give a proper ass-kicking. The primitive plot is dolled up with the period attractions of the 1980s, so viewers will get their fill of moustaches, mullets, perms, tight jeans and puffy jackets (on the title character), as well as many other fashionable creations and, of course, the ultimate macho man. All of this in the grimy reality of 1980s Germany and in combination with the most hackneyed clichés of action B-movies. It’s hard to say why the film’s title is in singular when there are two macho men, for both of whom the movie the film is an unconcealed, seriously intended, narcissistic exhibition. Both of them are given equal space for tough-guy antics and showing off their athletic prowess, and women immediately invite them into their beds without any exposition, simply because they’re athletes. Macho Man is one of the amazing pieces of the huge puzzle of the German cinema of the second half of the twentieth century, which indeed offers countless unexpected niches beyond the boundaries of the usual and recognised categories. 7/10 (2014.09.22)