"Ketchup Kid" is, despite the title, a German-language live action short film from 2013. It is a co-production between Austria and Slovakia, which surprises me a bit because the man in charge here is German Patrick Vollrath. He is the director of these minimally under 20 minutes and also one of several writers and a Slovakian impact I cannot see whatsoever. Anyway, this is a kids story mostly, which may explain why it is categorized as an adventure genre-wise too here on imdb. It is about two outsiders and how they meet and it could be the beginning of a really nice friendship. But as there are some bullies around, there is also some fighting involved, mostly physical and not verbal. I would not say it was a bad watch, but there are some aspects here that make it easy for me to say I did not like this award-winning film too much. It even delivered at awards bodies at the other end of the world, which surprises me a bit. Nice marketing I suppose. Anyway, the knife scene and the train scene are pretty extreme honestly and I think they should have gone for one out of these two escalations only, no matter which one. The route they actually took makes it feel a bit pseudo dramatic. Sometimes less is more. Still I felt that with how the wound is not too serious and also how the train stops quickly enough, they took a realistic route out both times and that was nicely done. It is a bit of a shame though as I felt this film had enough subtlety and was quietly convincing here and there, so no need to throw it all aboard and go all in and maybe the one day he won't pour the ketchup on his sandwich is the one where he sprays it (including the urine) at the bully's big brother. Must be a family thing. It all came back to them. Allso one thing I was wondering about early on is how the kids wwatch that ketchup video and are disgusted. But why? Kids love ketchup. I would have thought they'd be jealous maybe because they would like to have this amount of ketchup at their disposal too and eat it on their sandwiches. But yeah, maybe just my perception. In the end, with the nice closing shot of the two walking away from the rails together, I wish I could have given this film more stars, but eventually I have to go for the negative recommendation. Also a bit surprised to see this take place at a "Gymnasium". I went to one myself and did not make such experiences there in terms of bullying. Sure there were outsides, but they ere mostly ignored, not attacked. So, all in all, I feel the talent is there, but the film needed better writing in the realism department. I suggest you watch something else instead, perhaps Vollrath's short film from not much later that was actually nominated for an Oscar. This certainly helped him in makking the transition to Hollywood. We'll see how that goes in the next years, so far I think it has not been utterly successful with the JGL movie, but Vollrath is still really young, so there may be more in store for him. Future will tell.
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