Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Beulah Bram
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
This television movie from eight years ago is described as an adventure on its IMDb page, but you could probably also go with drama or mystery. "Manatu" or (the long title) "Manatu - Only the Truth can save you" is a 90-minute movie, in which a family gets sent a board game by a relative from abroad and this game gets them in big danger. In the end, the relative comes to the family's house to warn them and sees that the game has fixed some of their issues, so everybody is happy finally even if they almost lost their lives before that.What sounds like a bit of a ridiculous plot, however, has its moments. I have to say despite some cringeworthy scenes (basically all involving Aleardi), it's a fairly entertaining film. Knüfken, Simon, Faßnacht, Aleardi and Valencia could be known to German audiences, so the cast is not that bad, especially because it has also Emilia Schüle in it and she is maybe the biggest 'female German acting prospect right now under 25. This is one of her first performances. The director is Edzard Onneken and you may have heard about "Türkisch für Anfänger", a television series for which he directed several episodes. He also worked with Otto Waalkes already.One thing that surprised me about the film is that they did not get scared early on when they realized there is actually something obviously supernatural with this game. The first 20 minutes weren't so great either, but afterward it gets much better, so let's talk about the better parts: Actually there is some nice writing occasionally here, for example I liked the very last "big mistake" question asked by the board game to Aleardi's character and his response and the sequence where the family's son is mirrored when he wants to smash the game was fairly entertaining too. In general, the whole question-asking part was nicely done and I never felt it became repetitive. I also liked how almost every member of the family got his somehow own level after they lied to the game and even if it was always the same location, I found myself glued to the screen.So, all in all I recommend this film. Definitely better than his rating suggests.
