If It Don't Fit, Use a Bigger Hammer

A building crew in the Ruhr. Three tradesmen keep the work loose, cut corners and cover for each other. The new apprentice is lazy and does nothing right. The crew decides to teach him a lesson and the pranks begin. Each prank pushes the next further, and at some point it stops being a joke and turns into real trouble, with money, a theft and people from the neighbourhood all coming into it. Peter Thorwarth's film is set in the Ruhr region of Germany and its humour rests entirely on the local speech, the jargon of the trade, and the post-industrial state of the area. The narrative is made of loose sections; the structure is a series of situations rather than a story. Dietmar Bär, Ralf Richter and Hilmi Sözer are in the cast, and Thorwarth appears himself. The film reached cult status in Germany. Who it's for: Viewers who like German regional comedy, working-class humour, and loosely structured films. Who it's not for: Most of the jokes depend on accent and local reference and are lost in subtitles. Some are also crude and stuck in their period.