The Zurich crime thriller: Borchert's case

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Episode of the series Der Zürich-Krimi
Original title Borchert's case
Country of production Germany
original language German
Production
company		 Graf film
length 88 minutes
classification Episode 1 ( list )
First broadcast May 5, 2016 on Das Erste
Rod
Director Matthias Steurer
script Verena Kurth
production Klaus Graf
music Michael Klaukien ,
Andreas Lonardoni
camera Michael Boxrucker
cut Dagmar Pohle
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Borchert's account

Borchert's Fall is a TV film by Matthias Steurer from the crime series Der Zürich-Krimi from 2016 . In the pilot episode , the lawyer played by Christian Kohlund , Thomas Borchert, surprisingly returns to his hometown of Zurich. Key roles are occupied by Katrin Bauerfeind , Robert Hunger-Bühler , Leslie Malton , Richard van Weyden and Felix Kramer .

action

The business lawyer Thomas Borchert was dismissed from his previous employer, the FonSonic Group in Frankfurt am Main , because of a bribery scandal in South America in which he was allegedly involved. Borchert decides to return to his family's once stately home in his home town of Zurich , which means that he can escape the access of the German authorities. In addition, his German lawyer license has been revoked, which he will only get back when he can prove his innocence beyond doubt. There are two colleagues who are also said to have been involved in the unclean million dollar deals on behalf of FonSonic, one of them has committed suicide, the other has gone into hiding. Borchert was to serve as the sole scapegoat. The lawyer is ready to take responsibility for misconduct he has committed, but wants FonSonic to be held accountable and to be stopped. To this end, he wants to secure evidence from a Swiss bank.

While shopping on the market square in Zurich, Borchert gets into new trouble when he sees the Filipino nanny Amihan Singh stealing bread. The young woman is caught and the security prevents her from escaping. Borchert, who senses that something is wrong with Amihan, wants to help her and interferes. As a result, he, too, was arrested and received a complaint for assault due to the tussle in the marketplace. While still in the station, Borchert contacts his old friend and lawyer Reto Zanger with the request to represent him legally. Zanger does come, but recommends that he be represented by the young lawyer Dominique Kuster, who, as it later turns out, is Zanger's daughter. Kuster takes over the case, but lets Borchert feel that she thinks little of him.

It turns out that Amihan kidnapped Daniel, the adoptive son of the wealthy couple Bea and Urs Frisch. She claims the boy is in danger. Police captain Furrer believes neither Amihan Singh nor Borchert, who subsequently investigates himself. Amihan reveals to Borchert that she is Daniel's birth mother and that she wanted to bring him back to her home country with the help of a pair of smugglers. The crook couple, to whom she had given all of her savings, saw an opportunity to get a lot more money by kidnapping Daniel for their part and trying to blackmail his adoptive parents. The builder Matthias Duplessis, who belongs to Zurich's high society, and his wife Charlotte, with whom Borchert used to be friends, are also involved in the scandal surrounding young women from whom their children have been taken away under flimsy allegations in order to refer them to wealthy interested parties. The decisive factor for Amihan, however, was that her son had been permanently put under pressure by his adoptive father in his favor, which was not good for his development. With Borchert's help, the child can be found unharmed by Captain Furrer and his people.

Bea Frisch, who genuinely loves Daniel but has so far been too weak to defy her husband's orders, although she did not approve of them, shaken up by the incidents, leaves her husband to fly with Daniel to his mother's home and give him his roots to show. She leaves the message that Urs shouldn't look for her and Daniel.

production

Production notes

The film, a Graf Film production, was shot from November 12th to December 12th, 2014 at locations in Zurich and in the Czech capital Prague . The editing was done by Mona Goos and Sascha Schwingel, the recording manager by Denisa Weisbauerová and the production manager by Darko Lovrinic and Petr Bilek. Christof Neracher was responsible for service production in Switzerland and Mia Film for the Czech co-production. Michal Pokorny and Kirsten Frehse ( ARD Degeto ) were in charge of production management . The film was funded by the Czech State Cinematography Fund.

background

Das Erste wrote about the first broadcast of the film: “The role of the uncomfortable homecomer with a not entirely white vest in the new crime series is perfect for Christian Kohlund. The Swiss actor with the sonorous voice embodies a rough leg who wants to come to terms with his past. TV presenter and publicist Katrin Bauerfeind plays his counterpart, an idealistic lawyer, with naturalness and a fighter's heart. Director Matthias Steurer and cameraman Michael Boxrucker show the financial metropolis on the Limmat from an unfamiliar side. "The film, based on a screenplay by Verena Kurth, combines" an exciting crime story about a broken hero with social issues such as the exploitation of migrants and their uncertain legal status " .

In an interview with the German Press Agency , Kohlund said about his role: “Borchert was certainly once a great idealist, obsessed with the search for justice, and he was a top business lawyer, then he allowed himself to be corrupted and lost something, enriched himself but he doesn't. " In addition, he suffered a severe blow of fate in his private life and is now in a phase of life in which he can "no longer look in the mirror". No matter what it costs, he wants to stand by what he has done and "wipe it clean". He also wanted to clear up things for which he was not responsible. Borchert is a very “brittle and lonely man who has lost many an illusion”, and yet this tendency towards idealism is still his own - and just “his urge for justice”.

publication

The film, produced on behalf of ARD Degeto for Das Erste , was broadcast for the first time on April 28, 2016 in the ARD program.

Polar Film + Medien GmbH released the pilot film along with the following five episodes of the crime series on DVD on April 1, 2020.

reception

Audience ratings

When it was first broadcast, 4.74 million viewers followed the film action, which corresponded to a market share of 14.8 percent. When it was repeated the following year, 3.98 million viewers tuned in, resulting in a market share of 14.4 percent.

criticism

The critics of the television magazine TV Spielfilm gave one out of three possible points for action and two out of three for suspense, pointed with the thumbs up and especially praised the main actor, who convinces as a “lawyer with rough edges”. The "two-parter tailor-made for Kohlund" shows that "the actor can do more than Schmonzette - at least the disaffected, lonely wolf looks good on him". Conclusion: “Hats off! Kohlund as a broken hero. "

Tilmann P. Gangloff gave the film three out of six possible stars on the tittelbach.tv website and wrote: “The location of the 'Zurich crime thrillers' is nowhere near as exotic as the locations of the other new Degeto series. However, there are other reasons why the opening film, 'Borchert's Case', is a mild disappointment: The horizontally told story about the lawyer’s crash is far more interesting than the actual (kidnapping) case. An even bigger drawback, however, is the lack of tension between the main actors. "Borchert is a" quite dazzling figure, but thanks to Kohlund, filmographically alone, he is almost automatically a popular figure ". It is true that "the combination Kohlund / Bauerfeind is not uninteresting on paper, but it does not really work between the two"; the Swiss have “a wonderful grating voice, but play strongly inwards”. Bauerfeind, on the other hand, is “an excellent moderator” [...] but “doesn't get enough game material in her role as a lawyer; in such situations she noticeably lacks the means that one might have at one's disposal if one has learned the craft. "Also some of the other actors sometimes seem left alone by the director."

In the Frankfurter Allgemeine , Matthias Hannemann stated: “A lawyer from Frankfurt wants to improve in Switzerland. We know the man who plays him from the ' Black Forest Clinic ' and the ' Traumschiff ' : Christian Kohlund does pretty well in the new 'Zurich crime thriller'. "You notice it right away:" Bonvivant type with severe mental injury ". From then on, “a thriller within a thriller” unfolds, which overloads the film; "A business crime would have been enough". Even if the viewer is “not exactly crazy” “with excitement”: Christian Kohlund is “in his role noticeably”.

In the Westphalian News it was said: “You rarely see lonely wolves in nature, but you do see them more often on television. Now there is one more "And further:" A rough and lonely man breaks with his sometimes inglorious past and becomes an idealistic investigator. There is probably something like that only on television. ”The“ calmly told film with the ambiguous title ”shows“ a bitter man who is caught up with his inglorious past again and again ”. Kohlund played him "very withdrawn, with mostly inscrutable, careworn facial features; his imposing figure wrapped in a thick coat with a high collar. Most impressive, however, is "his distinctive voice, which occasionally makes you shudder".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Zurich crime thriller - Borchert's case, TV film (series), 2014-2015 | Crew United. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  2. ↑ The Zurich crime thriller - Borchert's case. In: degeto.de. Retrieved August 10, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b The Zurich crime thriller - Borchert's case In: Westfälische Nachrichten . April 28, 2016. Accessed August 10, 2020.
  4. ↑ The Zurich crime thriller - Borchert's case Fig. DVD covers Das Erste
  5. ↑ a b Tilmann P. Gangloff : Series "The Zurich Crime - Borchert's Case". Kohlund, Bauerfeind, Hunger-Bühler. All-world thriller from all-world big city. In: tittelbach.tv. July 10, 2019, accessed August 10, 2020 .
  6. ↑ “Zurich-Krimi” and Kerner's quiz show almost on par. In: Focus Online , July 28, 2017. Accessed August 10, 2020.
  7. ↑ The Zurich crime thriller: Borchert's case See tvspielfilm.de (including 18 film images). Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  8. ↑ Matthias Hannemann: “The Zurich Crime” in the First: Geläutert am See
    In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 28, 2016. Retrieved on August 10, 2020.