Captain Cologne (Guido Renner) really tries everything to get his guests in the right mood.

Even before the "Agrippina" has detached itself from the quay at the Hohenzollern Bridge, one of those Cologne self-aggrandizement hymns booms out of the loudspeakers, of which the "most beautiful city in the world" can't get enough, and a witty little joke ("Dear passenger end") lays " Hachmut" on the microphone on top of that.

It doesn't work, at least not with Daniel Huberty (Stephan Kampwirth), a wiry ex-math teacher who is now also a wiry ex-husband and ex-private school owner.

While other guests on deck prove that Kölsch is the only language in the world that you can sing and drink, the sunglass wearer is in a bad mood for two.

He thinks of the reputation that has clung to him for ten years, the collapse of his former life and Jana, especially her.

In 2012, Huberty was sentenced to a year and a half in prison;

he had abused the 14-year-old student Jana Künitz.

Now mankind should find out: the love was real and the verdict was an evil conspiracy!

Says Huberty.

He seizes the "Agrippina" with a pistol and a bomb threat and demands that people finally listen to him.

Five responsible for his downfall

It's nicer for us than for the passengers on board.

"Huberty's Rache", written by Eva and Volker A. Zahn, who received a Grimme Prize for the high school thriller "You can never be sure" in 2009, turns out to be a chamber play, even without a Rhine panorama, yes, even would work without commissioners: the hostage-taker set up a camera on the ship.

He wants to present five people whom he holds responsible for his downfall, sends a corresponding list outside, and soon a shuttle boat is roaring across the Rhine.

Only the public prosecutor Svenja Poulsen (Christina Große), who made Huberty particularly angry during his trial, does not have to be contacted by the frantically investigating Cologne police.

Poulsen is already on board with her daughter Amelie (Anna Bachmann) and realizes that

"Huberty's revenge" is the 84th case for Max Ballauf (Klaus Behrendt) and Freddy Schenk (Dietmar Bär), and the Zahn couple's crime list is long - both of which are noticeable in the production.

Not even the camera deviates from the usual.

But hostage dramas are captivating per se, because everyone involved is psychologically sewn to the edge, and the old man's wisdom about the state of the world is unexpectedly topical: "Nowadays everyone thinks they have the right to go crazy just because they feel offended." During the filming, Freddy's murmuring was meant as a comment on the angry citizens in the country.

When broadcast, one immediately thinks of a rage president.

Daniel Huberty, who, like all educators, sees himself in a position to "understand complicated issues in a differentiated way",

meanwhile describes the taking of hostages as an "action" for his "public rehabilitation".

Whether he would really use his weapons if the worst came to the worst remains to be seen for a long time due to Stephan Kampwirth's throttled game.

The police have to assume that because Huberty was already to blame for the death of a ship's technician before his "action".

But Huberty is "rather gentle" as a guy.

That's how he wants to appear, and that's how the victim from the past, Jana Künitz (Mathilde Bundschuh), who is now of age, explains it at first.

At the time of the boat hijacking, she preferred to live with a dog rather than a partner on a campsite near the Rhine, and of course this slowly escalating "crime scene" (director: Marcus Weiler) leads to a conversation between her and the man who successfully ensnared his "charge". and eventually abused.

In terms of acting, the encounter between perpetrator and victim is the highlight of "Huberty's Revenge".

Mathilde Bundschuh plays Jana with room for the real feelings that once existed between the girl and the popular math and physics teacher.

And yet she underscores the horror of the experience with her ever harder gaze and with ever more unmistakable words: “I still get sick today when I think of your smell.” This performance reverberates.

The crime scene: Huberty's revenge runs on Sunday at 8:15 p.m. in the first.