Concinnity should become a central category of television criticism, even in the zero-to-five-thumb variety. In the classical rhetoric of Cicero, the term describes the syntactic elegance and the rhythmic balance beyond the purely grammatical correctness. So the well-formed. Quintilian, the great Cicero adept and champion of natural speech, rejected the “superficial” rhetoric of the sophist Gorgias as “frosty and hollow chasing after antitheses and symmetries”, precisely because the concise arrangement of words, sounds and thoughts was lacking. But Gorgias was far from slowed down.
The new Cologne “Tatort” opens with a look at a window, behind which we see three drunk, shouting people staggering to the booming music and something (we will soon know: someone) step into it. This is followed by a kind of reverse shot, which focuses on maximum contrast: In the dark garden in front of the house lies an apparently dejected policewoman (Anna Brüggemann); a threatening sound drills into the now muffled music. In order to be absolutely sure that the contrast between orgiastic-violent happiness and abused state power is understood, the window is faded in again, then the policewoman again, and again window, policewoman, window, policewoman, window, policewoman. This hollow pursuit of the antithesis would hardly be worth mentioning if it weren't for the symptomatic of the entire film,and that on all three levels of book (Rainer Butt, Christine Hartmann), direction (Christine Hartmann) and acting (anti) sophistication. For a long time, this bloodlust episode has the elegance of a peasant theater despite or even because of its vying for relevance topic.
Brutal end of a business trip due to disturbance of the peace
A colleague of the policewoman was beaten to death at the rather unbelievable party: brutal end of a business trip due to disturbance of the peace. As comments in online forums quickly show, the victim “ran into a notorious police hater”. When the main suspect (Hauke Diekamp) was found dead in the same place the next day, the working hypothesis of Commissioner Freddy Schenk (Dietmar Bär), which, like all dialogues, whistled for euphony, was: “They flattened a cop. But after the kick comes the hangover. They're in deep shit, have to run away, need money, drugs. They wait until the air is clear to get the material - and there is stress. "" Police murderer shot. Was it revenge? ”Asks the tabloids crisply, and Max Ballauf (Klaus J.Behrendt) does not want to exclude vigilante justice from police circles a priori.
So it is determined in two directions, against the other participants of the party and against one's own "company", but with all the stubbornness that one is used to from this Asterix-and-Obelix couple: permanent explanation service with coffee cup in hand. The narrative clumsiness with which the problem complexes of hatred of the police, of gays or women within the police family are spelled out in Gorgian is ruinous even by “Tatort” standards. The brave Götz Schubert as the firm head of department Schäfer can unfortunately do nothing.Even more fake than suspicious "Listen" to the suspect or the unprofessional civil servants stinking against the circumstances (and foreigners and gays) over a beer after work, the troubled character Jütte (Roland Riebeling), the problematic, partisan solidarity of colleagues, who has not become more interesting after a year has to exhibit (“It doesn't always hit the wrong people”) and has to pretend an apparently comical subplot (candidate for the staff council).
To make matters worse, the hapless script and the routine direction get tangled up in outrageous who-when-where coincidences, inconsistencies in details (everything related to a video of the deed; a physically almost impossible shot in the stomach) when trying to provide a surprising explanation. and psychological fantasies (accusations are incomprehensible; motives for murder appear artificial).
Nevertheless, with the at least fitting title “Kaputt” and the even more fitting final question “What for?”, The film aims at the very grand finale of the tragic.
To paraphrase Quintilian: zero concinnity, zero thumb.
Crime scene: Kaputt
, Whit Monday, 8.15 p.m., ARD