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“Police call” scene with Bernhard Schütz (M.): First drunkenness, then murder

Photo: Christoph Assmann / rbb

"Dad?" The lawyer's son, disturbed by last night's binge drinking, wakes up on the leather couch in the family's country house, and in front of him unexpectedly stands the old man who has come from the big city because he smelled that the useless son had once again made a fool of himself . The old man growls: “You have to earn a father.”

What a brutal sentence. In this “police call” he is spoken by the Volksbühne actor Bernhard Schütz, who caused a sensation on television as the parliamentarian chav “Eichwald, MB”. Since Schütz can do both bull neck and pinstripes, the sentence that comes out of his mouth, which is cruel on so many levels, sounds very believable.

First drunkenness, then murder

The son of the law patriarch has actually screwed everything up again: he was on a hunting trip with two young colleagues, which then turned into a drunken session, during which they apparently fought for influence in the office at gunpoint. In the end, one of the participants in the hunting party is found on the Oder with a bullet in his body.

The hunt was organized by a Pole who runs a pig farm with his family in the immediate vicinity of the territory of the German lawyer clan, or rather what is left of it. At one time, around 1,000 animals were fattened on the farm, but because of African swine fever, they all had to be culled. Now there are only a few happy organic pigs grunting on the farm. But the new eco-happiness is hardly enough for humans to survive.

In a risky, but barely successful, narrative maneuver, this "police call" pits two very different social groups against each other: the silent farmers, connected to their land, and the power-talking, land-grabbing lawyers. Some are fighting for their existence, others for power. All pigs. Especially the people.

The gray bread takes over

This crime novel obviously had a difficult genesis; This is at least indicated by the fact that four people worked on the script (Seraina Nyikos, Lucas Flasch, Mike Bäuml, Tomasz E. Rudzik). For some time now, it has been unclear who is actually in charge in the German-Polish “police call”. After years of indifferent service from Maria Simon and Lucas Gregorowicz, there is a confusing coming and going on the investigative front. André Kaczmarcyk played the last episode as Inspector Ross; There he was strolling through gray-bread-gray Cottbus in an oxblood-red faux leather coat and looking a bit like the flamboyant queer pop pioneer Marc Almond.

Now, no offense meant, the gray bread has taken over the investigation. Kaczmarcyk is taking a break, but Gisa Flake (known from the “heute show”) and Frank Leo Schröder (known from the Anke Engelke comedy “Anke”) are responsible as Inspector Luschke and Inspector Rogov. The two had already appeared as sidekicks in various “police calls”. The thing about the gray bread should be taken literally: During the investigation, Rogov constantly puts industrial salami on the shrink-wrapped supermarket bread. Luschke always politely declines. These tentative references to eating habits are all that one would allow as characteristics of the newly joined investigative duo.

Such minimalism has rarely been seen among new commissioners. This is good for the case because you can concentrate on the essentials. And why bother with the habits of the police officers if they will soon be crushed by the nervous public service system?

In any case, despite some weaknesses in the plot and characters, this “police call” (director: Tomasz E. Rudzik) develops its own, earthy sound that is free of investigative quirks. Which is also due to almost meditative passages from the pigsty.

You almost grow to love the animals as much as the old farmer's wife does, living in a kind of symbiosis with them. She strokes her bristles again and again, as if she wanted to warm herself on the fattening cattle's fat. The animals seem to enjoy it and look as if they are smiling. Maybe pigs are just better people.

Rating:

6 out of 10 points

“Police call 110: Pigs”,

Sunday, 8.15 p.m., Das Erste