He was the first and last action hero of public television. He was already rampaging in the Elbphilharmonie, when it wasn't quite finished. As a suspended German official, he went through Turkish prisons without thinking about the diplomatic consequences. He used a bazooka to escape through the sheds at the port of Hamburg and showed little interest in the collateral damage.
As Til Tschiller, Til Schweiger made a beautiful, stately trace of devastation on German television. The material costs were high, the human wear enormous, the faults in NDR and ARD massive. After five times more, sometimes less artistically unleashed "crime scene" episodes, it was the end. Tschiller was burned out, Schweiger wanted his rest.
Neuwerk should now start again. After a one and a half year broadcast break - the last time his episode "Off Duty", which flopped in the cinema, premiered in July 2018 - we meet Schweiger's Tschiller again on the small island belonging to Hamburg in the Helgoland Bay, where he looks after children who are difficult to educate. When he looks up into the cloudy North Sea sky, Tschiller sees birds on the move and says: "These are barnacle geese. They will soon make their way to the Arctic. But before that they shit everything."
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Schweiger "crime scene": ready for the islandTschiller has to put up with it, he has no pistol left to take the geese out of the sky. The ex-cop speaks a little as if he is getting ready for a long hibernation. He is now the Lost Action Hero, tired, lost in the world, in the fall of his work. Schweiger wanted it that way, the NDR and the ARD will be happy - finally no expensive billiards. Both parties still had contracts to fulfill. And they made something quite interesting out of the predicament.
Moral millimeter work
Til Schweiger, 56, now acts somewhat like action veteran Liam Neeson, 67, in his many late assertive thrillers ("72 hours", "96 hours" and so on). In any case, one always had the feeling that Schweiger wanted to find his way into exactly this kind of role: the attacked family man, who goes to the utmost out of ultimate hope and just anger. The problem was that Tschiller's and Schweiger's anger was often not just, but self-righteous. Revenge thrillers are a matter of millimeters when it comes to morality.
This millimeter work succeeds quite well in the new "crime scene" over distances. The thriller begins vaguely with a basic situation like that from the third part of "96 Hours", where the ex-wife of the hero embodied by Liam Neeson is murdered. Tschiller also fights at the beginning of "Tschill out" with the loss of his ex-wife, who was previously killed by gangsters.
Overview of all "crime scene" teams
Boerne and Thiel in Münster
The Prof and the Proll: Since 2002, Jan Josef Liefers as coroner Karl-Friedrich Boerne and Axel Prahl as Frank Thiel have been investigating biscuit dynasties, potato kings and asparagus emperors. One snob and closely related to the Münster-based honorary body, the other St. Pauli fan and outsider. A combination with which initially grotesque humor was smuggled into the "crime scene", but has been exhausted in gag canons in recent years. There were three cases this year - all were hit hits.
Lannert and Bootz in Stuttgart
The injured: Richy Müller as Thorsten Lannert and Felix Klare as Sebastian Bootz are great guys. One with a tragic undercover detective past, the other as an honestly failed husband. They have been in use since 2008, at the beginning the cases were washed down very routinely. But the latest Stuttgart episodes deal with exciting topics such as Stuttgart 21, unprocessed RAF history and the need for care at the highest aesthetic level. Only the Satanist horror was a bit dull lately.
Borowski and Sahin in Kiel
The world changer: As Klaus Borowski, Axel Milberg is best when he descends in parallel cosms from psychopaths - perhaps because Borowski himself is built close to the madness. Joined in in 2003 and was sensibly monitored by a police psychologist until 2009. But the women come and go in the Borowski "crime scene". After Maren Eggert and Sibel Kekilli, the highly traded Turkish-born actress Almila Bagriacik ("4 Blocks") has taken on the role of the female sidekick.
Murot in Hesse
Don't be afraid of the pianist! Whether on the piano, on the chainsaw or on the machine gun - Ulrich Tukur as Inspector Murot is almost always a sensation. Almost always: The number with the jugglers in the circus episode "Free from Giddiness" from 2013 was really bad, but the Tarantino meets Truffaut episode "Born in Pain" 2014 was an absolute masterpiece and the marmot episode from that of SPIEGEL -ONLINE readers' most beloved "crime scene" last season.
Gorniak, Winkler and Schnabel in Dresden
It started funny, it continued undecided, it got dark. Alwara Höfels, Karin Hanczewski and Martin Brambach had to struggle very hard in the first episode with the half-baked concept of the MDR. Höfels took the consequences and said goodbye. Now Cornelia Göschel has taken over as Commissioner Winkler - her first appearance was about a mischievous serial killer. The Dresden "crime scene" now wants to be a tough, contemporary cop crime thriller.
Berg and Tobler in the Black Forest
Eva Löbau as Franziska Tobler and Hans-Jochen Wagner as Friedemann Berg do not require dialogue fans or exotic role biographies. They use what this weather-intensive crime thriller in the Black Forest has to offer. A home thriller in which everything is produced locally: fruit, schnapps, death. With the last, exceptional consequences, the district in Germany's extreme southwest also showed an extreme willingness to take risks and showed one case from the perspective of a schizophrenic and a sex offender.
Tschiller in Hamburg
The "crime scene" almighty dreams had not come true. Mega star Til Schweiger, who is committed to extra conditions, did not bring the crime series any mega quotas as Commissioner Tschiller. Not even through Panzerfaust and Helene Fischer use. After action blockbuster attempts that failed on the public front, the sixth installment of the Tschiller in Hamburg has just been turned off: you can hear that it is meant to be a broken figure. Not broadcast before 2020.
Dorn and Lessing in Weimar
Is it still a thriller? Nora Tschirner as Commissioner Dorn and Christian Ulmen as colleague Lessing let the usual "crime scene" investigative punching go into vain with casual elegance - and of all places in the area of influence of the MDR, where people used to struggle with humor and subversion. After initially sluggish programming as an event "crime scene", Dorn and Lessing are now investigating twice a year.
Falcon in Northern Germany
Punk forever: Wotan Wilke Möhring as Commissioner Falke listens to punk and wears a flimsy Ramones shirt to sleep and to investigate. First he was traveling in Hamburg, then he had to leave the city to Til Schweiger and moved to the northern German region, now he can investigate again in Hamburg. Franziska Weisz acts as Julia Grosz in the role of co-investigator. Two episodes a year.
Faber, Bönisch, Dalay and Kossik in Dortmund
The sick: Jörg Hartmann swallows plenty of pills as Peter Faber and breaks toilets. Anna Schudt as colleague Martina Bönisch climbs to bed more to reduce frustration than to increase pleasure with callboys and vacuum cleaner representatives. Aylin Tezel as Nora Dalay and Stefan Konarske as Daniel Kossik have sweated together on patrol and in bed - but would never use the L-word. Two episodes a year. One of the few TV areas with stringent figure development. The elite of German television crime. Stefan Konarske has now got out and has been replaced by Rick Okon ("Das Boot").
Brix and Janneke in Frankfurt
How are they on it? Nobody in television crime Germany goes to work as balanced as Paul Brix (Wolfram Koch, l.) And Anna Janneke (Margarita Broich, r.). A good mood as a unique selling point, an interesting spin. Instead of friction, concentrated attention for each case. Brix used to be in the custom, Janneke previously worked as a psychologist: a good addition to get down in the hard, sick and yet often cheerful twisted cases of the Hessian "crime scene". People like to experiment here, and forget the haunted house horror that caused heated debates within ARD. Two episodes a year.
Rubin and Karow in Berlin
He a pig, she a slut: In contrast to the former sunny capital cops Ritter and Stark, "Tatort" successors Mark Waschke as Robert Karow and Meret Becker as Nina Rubin are drawn with an extremely black line. While Karow has been doing business with the drug mafia in the first episode, Rubin is enjoying SM games in the backyards of Kreuzberg hipster bars. In addition to blatant character drawings, there are above all coherent impressions of the capital in the radically modernized Berlin "crime scene". Two episodes a year. Meret Becker will soon leave the series, the successor is still unclear.
Stellbrink in Saarbrücken
The undecided: Since 2013 Devid Striesow as Jens Stellbrink and Elisabeth Brück as Lisa Marx in Saarbrücken. He is a weird feeling person, she is a brutal analysis machine. In Saarbrücken you like it a bit simpler when it comes to character drawing. The potential of the great actor Striesow was never even fully exploited. Departure in January 2019.
Voss and ringlet in Franconia
The strangers: Felix Voss is a stray and closed northern light with a penchant for techno excesses, Paula Ringelhahn still came over from the east during the Berlin Wall because she believed in freedom and democracy. Now the two commissioners, who don't match at all, are investigating in an area where they also seem out of place. An attractive basic situation. Once a year, Fabian Hinrichs and Dagmar Manzel appear as an unequal couple in the hinterland of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia. Hinrichs had previously caused a sensation and audience in love in a BR episode as investigative owl Gisbert.
Eisner and Fellner in Vienna
The double espresso: Since 1999 Harald Krassnitzer as Major Moritz Eisner has been grumpy, practical, good. Since then he has poured in himself around 5000 cups of mocha and other strong caffeinated drinks. Since 2011 he has been supported by Adele Neuhauser as Bibi Fellner, a (mostly) dry alcoholic with a penchant for the half-world on the Prater. Vienna, dark and cold like a little stale black man. In 2014 there was the Grimme Prize.
Ballauf and Schenk in Cologne
The couple: Klaus J. Behrendt as Max Ballauf and Dietmar Bär as Freddy Schenk have long stood for the good old socio-crime thriller - not an issue that the two did not warmly explain and explain away. Schenk has a woman at home that has never been seen before. But honestly: What can she do against his big love Ballauf? With us since 1997, three to four cases a year. After assistant Franziska was gruesomely murdered from the TV area in early 2014, Cologne's life is darker and more unforgiving. The two "crime scene" olies are actually quite good.
Odenthal in Ludwigshafen
The experiment machine: There were the most beautiful amorous escapades and the most daring stories - including an excursion into space. Ulrike Folkerts as Lena Odenthal has been in use since 1989, Andreas Hoppe as Mario Kopper joined in 1996. But left the "crime scene" again in 2017. The SWR is currently making all kinds of attempts with the TV district, but the two improv episodes fell far short of expectations. Nevertheless: Please continue experimenting!
Lindholm in Hanover and surroundings
The woman of today: Maria Furtwängler has been in the role of Charlotte Lindholm in Lower Saxony since 2002 and has become the epitome of the modern female investigator in recent years. Experienced flatmates, heavily pregnant during explosive investigations, later she brought the child and career together well. Lindholm is personalized self-optimization, conservative at heart, but open to experimentation. In short: the Ursula von der Leyen of the "crime scene". Previously two to three episodes a year, now only one. Not always great, never boring.
Batic and Leitmayr in Munich
The eternal bachelors: The two have been in use for more than a quarter of a century - and are still good for a scandal: Commissioner Ivo Batic (Miroslav Nemec, l.) And colleague Franz Leitmayr (Udo Wachtveitl) recently provided an explicit thriller the Munich porn business for turmoil among the audience. Whether swinger clubs or polyamory: the Bavarian boys, grayed out in honor, continue to curiously descend into the more difficult erogenous zones of German society.
Irish actor Neeson played something like this in his films with emotional understatement. And with such emotional understatement, Irish director and screenwriter Eoin Moore now stages the injured, broken hero Tschilller. Moore is one of the best directors working in Germany. With the late exceptional actor Andreas Schmidt, he provided ambivalent psychograms of violent criminals; with the Rostock "police call" he developed a TV area where physical unleashing and psychological accuracy go hand in hand.
Tschiller has "feelings and such"
And so in the "Tatort" (co-author: Anika Wangard) Moore throws the grieving, self-desperate Tschiller back on himself without being allowed to shoot himself out of the situation with force of arms.
As a kind of firearm methadone, Moore does treat him to some paintball action. While the behavior-prone kids from the Neuwerk youth center are shooting paint at their heads, Tschiller, who has recently become interested in pedagogy, explains: "It's about risky experiences. Learning to protect yourself. The most important thing is to learn to trust your partner. In one word: team building . "
Well, not every dialogue is right. And when he is sitting, he is often not credibly spoken. But you can endure that. Also because there is a reunion with investigative colleague Yalcin Gmer played by Fahri Yardim. He brings the singer of a radical left-wing German punk band to the island, who has taken on gangsters and is now to be murdered.
The fact that the plot is later turned from political punk and drug swamp towards pedophile crime is a considerable strain on the plausibility, but there is every monologue at Yardim's Gummer. And everyone is spoken well by him. For example, when one friend rubs his helper syndrome under the nose again: "This is an addiction, Nick! Your addiction tells you all the time: Where can I play the hero?"
Tschiller then acts disarmed at some point, in the end he even stammered: "There is still a lot of stuff in me, feelings and such." So there is still a lot to do at Tschiller. But he also tries hard. Now please return the pistol to the man.
Rating: 6 out of 10 points
"Crime scene: Tschill out", Sunday, 8.15 p.m., ARD