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'Schultze Gets the Blues': Understated and heart smart

"About Schultze" — I mean, "Schultze Gets the Blues" — is a lot like Jack Nicholson's "About Schmidt" in that it, too, focuses on an eccentric retiree who embarks on a life-changing journey.

Serenaded into reluctant early retirement by their fellow salt miners, Schultze (the sublime Horst Krause) and his two best friends don't know what to do with themselves. They drink beer. Play chess. Listen to the radio. Drink beer. Play chess ...

Paramount Classics 'Schultze Gets the Blues' B The verdict: A deadpan, toe-tapping charmer from Germany. Director: Michael Schorr Starring: Horst Krause, Harald Warmbrunn, Karl Fred Muller, Ursula Schucht and Hannelore Schubert Run time: 114 minutes Release date: February 18, 2005 Rating: PG for language See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer   -- Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Schultze Gets the Blues"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Then one night, Schultze catches a snatch of zydeco music on his radio. And his life changes. He begins cooking Cajun food and his accordion, which he inherited from his father and has dutifully played the polka on for years, becomes a magical instrument, able to transport him from his homey shack in the shadow of a giant slag heap to the honky-tonk easy living of bayou country.

Sent to his little German town's sister city in Texas, he's supposed to play more polka at a local festival, but zydeco has him in its infectious grip. So he sets off on a picaresque journey reminiscent of Johnny Depp's oddball odyssey in "Dead Man."

Pudgy and pink as a big baby, Schultze is a roly-poly naif whose encounters are both down-home natural and somewhat fantastical. Played with unfailing charm and benign, big-bellied good humor by Krause, Schultze treats a backwoods country bar or a woman living on a open-air barge in the middle of a swamp as little bits of heaven. He clearly dances to a different tune than the one he's heard all his life in his Teutonic homeland.

"Schultze" isn't just slow. It's very slow — especially at first. But like a lazy summer day in the Big Easy, the movie sneaks up on you. And there are wry unexpected humorous touches. Take Schultze's retirement gift. Not a gold watch, but a lamp made from a big crystallized chunk of unprocessed salt.

Understated and heart smart, "Schultze Gets the Blues" proves that anybody can have a dream, even a seemingly stoic retiree who never did an untoward thing in his life ... till he heard the music that makes him dance.