"Tatort" today from Franconia: "Where's Mike?" In a quick check

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Fabian Hinrichs, Dagmar Manzel in "Tatort: ​​Where's Mike?": A highly nervous thriller that plays with our fears and expectations

Photo: Claussen + Putz Filmproduktion / BR

The scenario:

Bamberg brutal.

After little Mike has disappeared, Felix Voss (Fabian Hinrichs) and Paula Ringelhahn (Dagmar Manzel) are confronted with a crime, the resolution of which repeatedly calls into question their perception techniques: in search of the missing boy, they look into cupboards and freezers and basement holes;

when witnesses are questioned, they are met by delusions and half-truths.

The investigations are not made easier by the fact that Ringelhahn fell in love with the later main suspect (Sylvester Groth) shortly before the case began and made a gruesome discovery in a chamber under his house.

The highlight:

"Sometimes it is not enough to tell the truth, it has to be correct." This is what they say as the team of investigators fights their way through a maze of true and false information.

The audience has to sort through images that are not always entirely reliable.

Because the characters' emotional worlds are also visualized, illusions and reality are closely interlinked.

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"Tatort" scene with Andreas Pietschmann, Fabian Hinrichs, Linda Pöppel

Photo: Marc Reimann / BR

The picture:

A black-painted single-family cuboid with almost no windows.

This is where the father and mother of the missing boy live.

If you live in such a gloomy box, your relatives no longer have to buy a coffin when you die.

The dialogue:

Inspector Hinrichs huddles in a closet in which the missing boy was sitting in front of him.

A forensic scientist examines the piece of furniture.

Forensic scientist: "I just came up with an ancient joke for pretending to be hiding."

Inspector: "A joke?"

Forenskier: "Yes, but that doesn't actually fit at all."

Commissioner: "Yes, tell me."

Forensic scientist: "Okay, so: What is a Geribbe doing in the bushes?"

Commissioner: "I don't know."

Forensic scientist: "It won the game of hide and seek."

The song:

"Breathe" by Prodigy.

In the bigbeat hit from 1996, singer Keith Flint, who died in 2019, throws all sorts of clinical vocabulary around: »Psychosomatic, addict, insane / Breathe the pressure«.

The Stick Track is running when a mother drives through the countryside in her car to visit her psychotic son in a care facility.

The review:

What is lurking behind the cellar door?

What horror is waiting in the freezer?

A very nervous thriller that plays with our fears and expectations.

The analysis:

Please read on here!

"Scene of the crime: Where's Mike?"

Sunday, 8:15 pm, Das Erste