"Tatort" today from Munich: "Murder under mistletoe" in a quick check

Enlarge image

Actors Nemec (2nd from left) and Wachtveitl (2nd from right): Detective Constable Ivor Partridge and Detective Chief Inspector Francis Lightmyer

Photo: Hendrik Heiden / Hendrik Heiden / BR

The scenario:

Agatha Christie Reloaded.

In the fireplace room of the English estate Middleton Beckford Hall the butler lies dead in front of the Christmas tree;

all around, the young lord, his over-the-top mother and her entourage make themselves overly suspicious, like in a Miss Marple crime thriller.

Franz Leitmayr (Udo Wachtveitl) and Ivo Batic (Miroslav Nemec) appear as Detective Chief Inspector Francis Lightmyer and Detective Constable Ivor Partridge at the scene of the crime - because the scenery is the imagined embellishment of a crime dinner, to which the assistant Kalli (Ferdinand Hofer) goes in his Munich kitchen has loaded.

Each of the dinner guests plays a suspicious person and the inspectors British variants of themselves. In between, the irony and the stink of the present breaks into the wooden history game with whiskers, tuxedo and housemaid's hat.

The highlight:

Costume gossip for the battered holiday crowd?

School play for the really clever?

Retro crime thriller with a second level?

The »Tatort« company outing to England in 1922 (book: Robert Löhr, director: Jobst Christian Oetzmann) ends, sorry spoilers, in the end with a very thin dramaturgical punchline.

The picture:

Choking in the Christmas decorations.

In one scene, the maid wriggles her neck in the string of lights hanging in the mansion's stairwell.

She can be saved, contrary to the wit or suspense in this British-Bavarian tabloid crime thriller.

The dialogue:

Batic is on the balcony with a crime dinner co-star during a smoke break.

Her: "Do you know 'Sherlock', the BBC series?"

He: »I don't really watch crime novels, at most a ›Tatort‹.

"Call the police" maybe."

She: "Yes, yes.

Anyway, there's also a historical episode with, uh, uh, Cumberbatch and Freeman, and they both look exactly like you."

The song:

"Button Up Your Overcoat" by Fred Waring & The Pennsylvanians.

The song is running when Batic and Leitmayr arrive at Kalli's and the young colleague with the top hat opens the door.

The review:

4 out of 10 points.

This attempt at a meta-Miss-Marple thriller then no longer tears the audience out of the pleasant sedation of Boxing Day.

»Crime scene: murder under mistletoe«,

Sunday, 8:15 p.m., Das Erste