A crime critic in the GA recently claimed that music by Tom Waits could make even bad crime films worth seeing or at least listening to. Now said critic has to revise. Even Waits can’t save the Münster crime scene – not even when Rebekka Bakken offers her much more pleasing version of “Little Drop of Poison”.
Accusing the people of Münster of slapstick would be like accusing the chef of cooking. It seems that people there have long since decided to throw all seriousness, which was once garnished with subtle humor, overboard and try their hand at slapping thighs. Neither Axel Prahl (as Inspector Thiel) nor Jan-Josef Liefers (as Professor Boerne) can do that. None of this is new.
The spy story, which begins – completely randomly – in Scheveningen, the Netherlands, is not entirely new, but at least it has been told in a new way. Less arbitrary: the allotment garden colony, whose tenants are portrayed with a lot of humor – everything from eco-vegans to Instagram sellers is there. And a naked man whose nudity is intended to provide humor. If that was the plan, that says a lot about the quality of a film.
Almost funny, even if seriously out of place in the crime scene: The squirrels as murder victims – sure, you can do it, but then you need caliber like Leslie Nielsen, who plays with stoic seriousness over completely exaggerated scenes.
Instead, it seems as if Prahl and Liefers hardly believe their own fate and are about to surrender to it. However, there can no longer be any talk of acting.
Rather, the crime thriller tries to place itself somewhere in line with the spy satires from past decades, which fails spectacularly because the basic construct of the crime scene and its characters in Münster are completely overwhelmed by the very subtle ideas from the script (Regine Bielefeldt) and Director’s chair (Brigitte Maria Bertele). This is at least partly because the Münster crime scene doesn’t seem to dare to loosen its own corset at least a little. Boerne remains Boerne, Thiel remains Thiel. In between, everyone involved repeatedly calls the victim “old woman” – almost cheeky when this refers to a woman born in 1954 (at least the year you could have pinched yourself). Luckily, there is a fund that Boerne now pays into every time he commits an outrageous act. In large bills, of course. Because Boerne will remain Boerne. Too bad.