Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Kebab mit Alles" is an Austrian German-language film from 2011, so this one had its 5th anniversary last year. It is one of the more recent filmmaking efforts by Wolfgang Murnberger and he is also among the many writers on this project. It was a small screen release, but I don't think this takes anything away from the quality at all as these slightly under 90 minutes are another example of how Austria knows how to make contemporarily relevant works about immigration while Germany rushes one garbage project after the next. It is what it is I guess and this one here is a success. German film buffs and Austrians will see some familiar names in the cast list here without a doubt. The two central characters are played by Vitasek and Seyfi as this is the story of a man with foreign background and a typical Austrian "Urgestein" clashing over property and who is allowed to have a restaurant on the premises. But luckily,enemies to both of them (Austrian and foreign and both of them lacking respect for the law through the most different approaches), their more tolerant wives and a sheep help the duo in fixing things eventually. There are weaknesses here and there like the overly forced happy ending, but the wives' argument makes up for it somehow. Also the joint restaurant idea is a bit cheesy. But luckily there are more than enough good parts before that and some of them are actually pretty funny most of them involving Vitasek, who is easily the film's MVP. German filmmakers who want to make another immigration-based film should check this one out first, so we don't get more garbage like the Hartmanns movie. It's also a great study on how to successfully avoid political correctness. More recently, they actually made a sequel to this film we got here and I hope Murnberger managed the same level of quality again. I will probably check out this sequel soon. Until then, let me recommend these thoroughly entertaining 1.5 hours we got here. Go check them out as I think the material was handled very well here on most occasions.
