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"Tatort" scene with Klaus J. Behrendt (2nd from left) and Dietmar Bär (right): It stays in the family.
Photo: Martin Valentin Menke / WDR
The scenario:
The German middle class, a mafia wonderland.
After a fire in a Persian restaurant, the corpse of a young man is found in the sooty furniture - it is the son of the grocer Viktor Raschke (brilliant: Manfred Zapatka), who has made the district subject to extortion and usury loans.
Inspector Schenk (Dietmar Bär) and colleague Ballauf (Klaus J. Behrendt) encounter a form of organized crime that comes along as neighborhood help.
The highlight:
It stays in the family.
Strange how in this »crime scene« Italian-American gangster folklore is relocated to the Cologne hood.
Everyone here is somehow linked to everyone else - even Commissioner Schenk, whose Persian son-in-law is apparently indebted to the German godfather.
The picture:
Power talk on the basketball court.
Ballauf interrogates another Delicatessen Mobster's son as he aggressively shoots baskets.
Maybe a bit too much US gangster film folklore: We're in Cologne after all - and not in New Jersey or New York's Lower East Side.
The dialogue:
The commissioners sit in front of the computer, which shows images of a violent neo-Nazi riot.
This is where they suspect the murderer of the mafioso's son.
Ballauf: »So far, our colleagues have only been able to identify a fraction of the participants. They're all between 18 and 40. It's like finding a needle in a haystack.«
Schenk: "More likely the Nazi in the Hool bunch."
The song:
»Two Guitars« by Alexandra.
Runs in a smoky bar called Hugo's Eck, which is also under the thumb of the family.
Schnaps and Schlager, longing and gangs of thugs, it's all mixed together here in a delicious way.
The review:
7 out of 10 points.
"The Sopranos" in the Kölsch bar: some scenes seem badly constructed, but the idiosyncratic mafia shoot is largely on.
The analysis:
Please read on here!
"Crime scene: protective measures",
Sunday, 8.15 p.m., the first