Jackie Zucker is a hustler, liar and fast-talking con artist, but he’s nearing the end of his rope. And if it’s not enough that he’s a dissipated Berliner sliding down the drain of late middle age, he’s also a bad Jew.
Did I say bad? I meant terrible.
Nonetheless, the rakish and endearing German comedy “Go for Zucker!” gets us to root for this hopeless scoundrel in no time flat. It’s partly Jackie’s charm and partly our perennial dream that, in the natural order of the universe, every dog will have his day.
“Go For Zucker!,” which opened the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival last year, begins its theatrical run Friday, March 3.
Everything turns upside down for Jackie (played to the hilt by Henry Hübchen) when he gets the news that his mother died in Frankfurt.
It’s been some 50 years since Mom left Berlin for the West, taking her other son, Samuel, with her. The brothers have barely spoken in all that time, and a chilly bitterness exists between them.
But they have an incentive to patch things up, and that’s Mom’s estate. Under the terms of her will, Jackie and Samuel will receive no inheritance unless they reconcile.
This small requirement is complicated by a gulf that trumps the problems of distance and time. The pleasingly plump Samuel (Udo Samel) has become successful, self-satisfied and Orthodox, while Jackie’s scam-packed life of vice has taken a desperate turn.
Writer-director Dani Levy pitches the antics one note higher by arranging for shiva to coincide exactly with a high-stakes pool tournament that represents Jackie’s last “get out of jail free” card. Fulfilling both obligations tests a man of even Jackie’s ingenuity.
“Go For Zucker!” nicely balances brainy comedy and stylish shtick, gleefully straddling the line between comedy and farce. It’s especially amusing to watch Jackie’s non-Jewish wife, eager to score the windfall promised in the will, frantically making her house kosher and whitewashing their secular lifestyle.
German critics credited the film for allowing audiences, for the first time in decades, to laugh with Jewish characters rather than seeing them only as victims. “Zucker” was a box-office smash at home and won the German Film Awards for best film, director and actor. Levy is parlaying his commercial and critical success into an even more daring follow-up — a satire of Hitler.
The phrase “German comedy” is usually an oxymoron, along the lines of “rapid transit” and “Cubs win.” But it can be said with a straight face about “Go For Zucker!,” which generates more than enough laughs and good will.
“Go For Zucker!” opens Friday, March 3 at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco and the Shattuck in Berkeley, and also screens March 9 at the CineArts in Pleasant Hill as part of the Contra Costa Jewish Film Festival.