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Kidnapping scene in the »crime scene«: The escalation drags on a bit
Photo: Bettina Müller / HR
We know that with the cut finger from a number of crime novels.
Family member kidnapped, ransom demand made, victim finger comes in the mail.
In this »crime scene«, however, the finger lies in a Tupperware jar, as it is used by ambitious mothers and fathers to carry fruit and vegetables for the little ones on excursions.
And because the victim's ex-partner arrives at the police station with her child, she first confuses the Tupperware: Instead of the one with the cut off limb, she hands the policeman the one with the cut carrots.
But better around than serving the hungry child in the playground with the father's finger.
This "crime scene" comes across like the tipsy version of a kidnapping thriller.
From the bagging of the rich victim on the golf course by a group of people masked with dog snouts to the ransom negotiations in the villa of the victim's father to the scavenger hunt-like handover of the money case - here all the plot components are easily delayed, stumbled and put together in a twisted manner.
The cheerful failure determines the brutal event.
»Who listens to German bands?«
The victim in this case is the unsympathetic son of the unsympathetic business lawyer Konrad Seibold (Bernhard Schütz in the best "Eichwald, MdB" asshole mood), who treats his cat Caligula like an emperor, but the rest of the world like scum.
The old man gets into real estate and corruption, the young man tried his hand at managing German bands.
What the pop snob Inspector Brix (Wolfram Koch), slightly piqued, whispers to colleague Janneke (Margarita Broich): "Who listens to German bands!"
Oh, well, we do.
Which is why I would like to quote briefly from the kidnapper hymn “New teeth for my brother and me” by the Hamburg band Superpunk: “I don't hate the rich / I just want to be a bit like them”.
Two lines that lead into the not too complex class struggle substructure of the »Tatort« grotesque.
New teeth, new life?
Superpunk is about 10,000 marks for the kidnappers' new teeth, while the »crime scene« is about four million euros, with which the perpetrators apparently want to start a new life.
And then a number of likeable women quickly come into their sights, teaching and learning female self-defense in a kind of fight club.
We are allowed to write so openly here, because in this thriller by author and director Petra Lüschow ("Petting instead of Pershing") it is less about guessing who is behind the kidnapping, than about how this kidnapping gradually emerges from the absurd Rudder is running.
It is entertaining to watch for a long time, but the bloody escalation in the "Reservoir Dogs" style in the last third is dragging on.
The weaknesses are also evident because the »Tatort« team around Janneke and Brix presented an extremely surprising and ingeniously constructed crime grotesque two years ago with the episode »Wrong Rabbit«.
Measured against this, the new "Reservoir Pug" fun in its funny unleashing is quite predictable.
And so we rock ourselves slightly flowery and throttled optimistically into a new "crime scene" season, in which all episodes were or are still being filmed under difficult corona conditions.
Real highlights are not yet in sight.
Rating:
6 out of 10 points
"Anyone who hesitates is dead,"
Sunday, 8:15 pm, Das Erste
