Amok game (film)

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Movie
Original title Amok game
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2018
length 89 minutes
Rod
Director Oliver Schmitz
script Christoph Busche
production Andreas Bareiss
Sven Burgemeister
camera Bernd Fischer
cut Manuel Reidinger
occupation

Amokspiel is a German thriller from 2018. The film is based on the novel of the same name by the German writer Sebastian Fitzek . It was first broadcast on November 27, 2018 on Sat.1 .

action

The psychologist Ira Samin discovers her dead daughter Sara, who has committed suicide , at home . Less than a year later, the hostage-taking expert received a call on a hot summer's day. At the local Berlin radio station 101.5, a man has taken host Timber and the participants of a studio tour hostage. The perpetrator appears to be well informed about Samin and explains that he is using the popular “Cash Call” competition for his own purpose. The competition participants must correctly name the sentence “I hear 101.5 and now release a hostage”. Otherwise he would shoot a hostage every hour.

Samin drives to the studio with her partner, the police officer Oliver Götz. She learns from her boss, Steuer, that the perpetrator has asked for her personally. This can also be seen when Samin speaks to him over the phone after the first round of cash call because he knows the psychologist's tactics. He also threatens to wear an explosives belt with a dead man's mechanism . After the police withdrew from the room in front of the studio, he was the first hostage to shoot Frank Körber, which all radio listeners heard.

Samin analyzes that the perpetrator is educated and wants to survive the day. Interior Minister Harzer puts pressure on the police. The psychologist seeks a face-to-face conversation with the hostage-taker. He implies that he knows the reason for Sara's suicide, but demands that the police find Leoni Gregor beforehand. But the young woman she was looking for died six months ago in a car accident and the relevant file has a blocking notice. However, the hostage-taker believes that Leoni is still alive.

Then Samin learns that her second daughter Kitty is working as an intern at the radio station and is currently hiding in a closet in the studio. Chief Public Prosecutor Forst brings Leoni's files and confirms the woman's death. It also reveals the hostage taker's identity. Jan May worked as a psychotherapist until he lost his fiancée in a car accident. While station boss Diesel suspects a conspiracy, Faust, who is actually responsible for white-collar crime , says Samin that May had treated Sara.

Samin confronts May with the findings, who then suspends the next cash call and takes off his disguise. May continues to doubt the portrayal of the car accident, but at the same time reveals that he knows nothing about Leoni's past. He points out that there is nothing in the autopsy report about Leoni's alleged pregnancy.

Diesel watches as Faust speaks of Leoni's removal to a man who has sneaked in as a paramedic, and is dejected. The chief prosecutor tells Samin that the attacker was Dr. Rudolf Paulsen bribes politicians and he has been investigating him for a long time. Leoni knows about everything and is already in the witness protection program in Spain. Faust staged the accident file to protect Leoni, who is actually called Lydia and is Paulsen's daughter.

The hostage Dörte Schmidt discovers a small camera that the police have built into the wall of the studio and signals "Bomb safe" on her hands. Fearing for Kitty, Samin wants to prevent the police from getting in, but is held back by Götz. On the next cash call, the person called gives the correct password, but May realizes that Steuer has diverted the call. In the commotion that followed, he shot Götz, but also suffered a gunshot wound in his leg. He also finds Kitty. Samin goes into the studio and shows May the files on Leoni. However, he demands that Leoni be brought to the studio. When Samin assures him that, he releases the hostages including Kitty.

Kitty sees that Götz was only faking his death. But then she is drugged and taken away by Paulsen helper, who is also disguised as a paramedic. Samin calls the interior minister from the studio and blackmails him with a secret account that he has in the Cayman Islands . In doing so, she forces him to take Leoni to the station. While they wait, May tells Samin that she was not to blame for Sara's suicide and also shows her that Körber is still alive. He only had a blank gun and didn't want to hurt anyone. Paulsen then calls Samin and tells her to come to another floor with May, where he is holding Kitty prisoner. On the way up, Götz reveals that he was bribed by Paulsen. When the helicopter flies away with Leoni, there is an exchange of fire in which Paulsen and Götz die. May then meets Leoni after all. Later on, Samin ensures that the couple is included in the witness protection program. She herself starts a relationship with Diesel.

production

Amokspiel is the fourth film adaptation of a Fitzek novel after The Child , The Joshua Profile and Cut Off .

The shooting took place in June and July 2018 in Berlin . The film received funding of € 330,000 from the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg . Sat.1 also broadcast the film in the very high-resolution Ultra HD format .

reception

The reviews of the film were very different.

Axel Weidemann attests to the FAZ “too many weaknesses. He submits to the compulsion to have a happy ending, characters like the station boss Diesel emphasizes the script and then drops it. The credibility of some minor characters is weak. The list of deficiencies extends to the costumes. You stay on the screen, if at all, because the film doesn't reveal everything right away. "

Julian Miller atquotemeter.de criticizes the dramaturgy , which in his opinion is bad : “The material is content with rummaging through thriller-like generalities and a string of half-baked twists and turns and entanglements, while he is as disinterested in the deeper inner life of his characters as it is in logical processes . "

Rainer Tittelbach comes to an ambivalent judgment in his review. The film is “not a subtle thriller and if you are looking for socially critical sub-texts, you will not find what you are looking for, although the TV movie has meanwhile developed from a psychological to a political thriller. As a suspense spectacle, the film, which is largely staged as a chamber play, works well. "

Tilmann P. Gangloff praises the tension of the film in the HAZ and also says: "The richness of action and optical effort are impressive anyway, the image design with its summer evening light and the thriller music are excellent."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sat.1 filmed Sebastian Fitzek's bestseller "Amokspiel". DWDL.de , June 20, 2018, accessed December 17, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Extra hot TV premiere: SAT.1 thriller "Amokspiel" as UHD event on UHD1 - November 27th, 8:15 pm, in UHD parallel to SD and HD broadcast. Press portal, November 23, 2018, accessed December 17, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Imagine you're on the radio and can't get out. FAZ, November 27, 2018, accessed on December 17, 2018 .
  4. ↑ «Game of Amok». Oddsmeter.de, November 27, 2018, accessed December 17, 2018 .
  5. ↑ TV film "Amokspiel". Tittelbach.tv, accessed on December 17, 2018 .
  6. ^ "Amokspiel" - high tension according to Sebastian Fitzek. Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, November 26, 2018, accessed on December 17, 2018 .