For two years there was no time to die. Or not to die. There was no time for nothing. There will be no death this week: The long-awaited "James Bond" film by Cary Fukunaga, in which the pre-Corona world is still encapsulated, will flood the cinemas. Not even Netflix or Apple could snatch the flick from MGM Studios for hundreds of millions of dollars, which probably has to do with the fact that MGM has been swallowed by Amazon in the meantime. But even Amazon is not (yet) thinking of “streaming first” when it comes to Bond. Saving the world in a nostalgic mixture of breathtaking stunts, glossy sexiness from deodorant advertising and record-breaking expensive surreptitious advertising works best in the cinema. And then of course the action has to - just don't think about the climate! - be flat enough.This time a scientist is kidnapped who, of course, has threatening knowledge. He can only be saved by the best of the best. The evil listens to the name Safin. The rest of “No Time to Die” is so far unknown, but it doesn't matter either. If you want complexity, look for it on Netflix, Apple or Prime Video.
On the other hand, those who can no longer stand their hunger for popcorn can enjoy action on ZDF, and not a bad one at all. The loose series “Sarah Kohr” is at least what comes closest to the “Bond” cosmos in public law. Lisa Maria Potthoff beats, climbs, shoots and blasts her way through Hamburg and the surrounding area successfully as a special police officer for six episodes (and without a double); Herbert Knaup also cuts a fine figure as a German M - prosecutor and somehow also agency manager Anton Mehringer. And the plot does not overwhelm anyone with originality: This time a scientist is kidnapped who, of course, has threatening knowledge. He can only be saved by the best of the best. Evil goes by the name of sarin.
The latter is not a new Dr. No, but the outlawed chemical warfare agent that the Assad regime used in Syria against its own people. From there, from Syria, the substance reached Hamburg in grenade form, where it is supposed to be neutralized in a special laboratory, but then gets lost along with the scientist (Kai Wiesinger). His co-worker, a young, handsome idiot (Jonas Anders), wasn't paying attention. We don't know any of that yet, but at the same time we already know a lot more. Starting with a scene at the highest adrenaline level is part of the good form of many suspense series today - here too, a preview of the wild end - but has been customary in Bond dramaturgy for decades.After a few seconds we jerk through Hamburg with the blood-smeared heroine in the evacuation armor and look spellbound at the detonator on the sarin cartridge, which then actually triggers. While the protagonist seems to suffocate, we move back in time twelve hours.
Author Timo Berndt, from whose pen all episodes of the Kohr saga come, with the exception of the more restrained opening sequence, has tried hard to get his book back up to speed and to incorporate many surprising changes. Characters appear as one thinks they know - a German convert, a terminally ill police officer who wants to fight "to the last breath" - but then their narrative strands develop differently than expected: the convert has little idea of what what she's doing, and the cop doesn't even think about sacrificing himself at the last second. What happens instead - different vengeance plots overlay each other - is anything but believable, but at least you can't guess, and that's half the battle in an action thriller. The other half is the precise one,Fast-paced production, which director Christian Theede did very well. Theede is not new on board either. He showed that he can do showdowns with the episode "The Missing Girl". “Something's wrong here”: What Sarah analyzes razor-sharp can be the motto of the film, which is implemented with pleasure, both narrative and aesthetically.
We know from the first moment that the sarin will reappear, but the danger is in no way averted, on the contrary: the threat situation is only now culminating is interested in sarin on behalf of a chemical company headed by Jessika Wallhoffer (Ulrike C. Tscharre), in the bones; a kidnapping, a climb, shootings and an after-glowing kiss. This is how the popcorn tastes. The only shame is that the book in the psychologizing superstructure bows before the German television film, on the one hand with a - also mirrored - death-of-the-brother-plot (including the usual guilt motive and maudlin confession dialogue), on the other hand with the redundant,slackly played subplot of the ailing mother (Corinna Kirchhoff) of the heroine, who rants uselessly against the mission. That is unlikely to happen to Bond.
Sarah Kohr: Silent Death
, 8:15 p.m., ZDF