Go for Zucker

COMEDY Make what you will of the fact that Go for Zucker trounced Downfall at the 2005 Lolas (Germany's equivalent of the Oscars). Different as the films may seem, with Downfall wallowing in Hitler's last days and Go for Zucker riffing on German Jewishness, the latter is no less under the thumb of German history for its comedy. While the Holocaust only sneaks into Go for Zucker in passing, the shadow of the Berlin Wall looms large over director Daniel Levy's farce. Jaeckie Zucker (Henry Hübchen) is an aging, fast-talking gambler struggling to repair his financial and familial woes — sort of an East Berlin version of Gene Hackman's Royal Tenenbaum. After receiving word of his mother's death, secular Jaeckie must reunite with his estranged Orthodox brother Samuel. The brothers' meshuga families come together to mourn, though hilarity only occasionally ensues. There's been plenty of press as to Go for Zucker's status as the first German-Jewish comedy in decades — newsworthy indeed, though the film itself seems more on par with middlebrow fare like The Family Stone than with the masterworks of an Ernst Lubitsch or a Billy Wilder. (Max Goldberg)

GO FOR ZUCKER opens Fri/3 in Bay Area theaters.

See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com for showtimes.