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Narcissus Anton Maler (Christopher Schärf): The patient who is in love with himself
Photo: Benoit Linder / SWR
Who will let a violent crime spoil their good mood?
The young, self-confident man whom the inspectors summoned as a witness, at least not.
He has dedicated himself entirely to the task of warming the world with his sunny disposition and delighting women's hearts with his charm.
The night before, a kiosk owner was beaten to death with a baseball bat, now the man appears with a bouquet of flowers for the investigators on the precinct.
Commissioner Stern (Lisa Bitter) makes it clear that shattered bodies and delicate flirtations somehow do not go together for her.
But the person opposite believes he can see through the policeman's strategic game: "Look innocently, with her beautiful eyes, and then hit it hard," he whistles at the officer, to whom he immediately offers you.
Not Anton, as it says in the ID, but Antoine is his first name - because of the French mother.
Wink, wink.
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Stern (Lisa Bitter, left) and Odenthal (Ulrike Folkerts): No pity for narcissists
Photo: Benoit Linder / SWR
The self-confidence of the would-be Frenchman (Christopher Schärf) is inexhaustible, he virtuously turns critical comments from his environment into their opposite.
When Inspector Odenthal (Ulrike Folkerts) later looked around, slightly disgusted, in his completely un-French-looking hole in his apartment, he said: “Yes, this is just a workshop of mine, temporarily.
Steve Jobs started out in a garage too. "
"He who lies, who manipulates"
Antoine is a genius by its own grace.
He currently works for a courier company.
As a web designer who designs a new website for the company, as he explains himself.
As a parcel carrier, as the managing director says later.
But at the moment, according to the boss, Antoine is about to be kicked out because he's only doing what he wants.
Odenthal was quickly on hand with the Antoine analysis beforehand: "He who lies, who manipulates, has a massive narcissistic disorder."
We can safely say it at this point: Of course Antoine is the guy who hit with the baseball bat.
The entire crime thriller is ascribed to his character;
the solution to the murder case is obvious after a short time.
This “crime scene” is less of a crime riddle than a perpetrator study.
Director and author Martin Eigler previously filmed a »crime scene« for SWR that revolved entirely around a single suspect: the Stuttgart episode with Manuel Rubey was about a notorious liar who plunged the audience into a labyrinth of false statements and facts took.
The episode "The Man Who Lies" was a neo-noir crime thriller that constantly forced you to rethink your position on the alleged perpetrator and to question your own intuition.
But that is exactly what does not happen with "The Evil King".
The investigators diagnose the narcissistic disorder of Antoine immediately after the first encounter and in this way guide the audience safely past all pathological expectations of the perpetrator.
It is precisely in the narcissist's manipulative techniques that his seductive power lies: if you love yourself like that, you could believe that you have to have reasons for it.
This gives rise to the attraction of this disease, which always gives the self-infatuated patient a friendly environment.
As a viewer, one would get much closer to the devastating power of narcissism if one could succumb to at least part of the plot.
But if you don't, you will know after a few minutes: This level of self-love is criminal.
Rating:
5 out of 10 points
"Tatort: The Bad King",
Sunday, 8:15 pm, Das Erste
