Crime scene: the price of life

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Price of life
Country of production Germany
original language German
Production
company		 Südwestrundfunk
with Maran Film
length 89 minutes
classification Episode 959 ( List )
First broadcast October 25, 2015 on Das Erste
Rod
Director Roland Suso Richter
script Holger Karsten Schmidt
production Sabine Tettenborn
music Johannes Kobilke
Stefan Ziethen
camera Jürgen Carle
Christoph Schmitz
cut Isabelle Allgeier
occupation

Price of Life is a television film from the crime series Tatort . The contribution produced by Südwestrundfunk is the 959th Tatort episode and was first broadcast on October 25, 2015 on ARD's first program. The Stuttgart investigator duo Lannert and Bootz is investigating its 17th case.

action

Jörg Albrecht is released from prison after a 15-year prison sentence for rape resulting in death and is picked up by his supposed probation officer. This drives with Albrecht into an underground car park. The offender recognizes her there, but is anesthetized from behind. When he comes to, his arms and legs are fixed. The kidnappers are Simone and Frank Mendt, the parents of his rape victim at the time. Even before the court proceedings 15 years ago it was known that Albrecht must have had an accomplice. He had recorded the rape on video and uploaded it to the Internet. However, since Albrecht had always covered up for this accomplice, his name never became known. The ex-prisoner, who begs for mercy in vain, reveals the name Stephan Freund under torture - then Mendt kills him with an injection.

The next morning, Albrecht's body is found in a dumpster. Since the deceased still has all the papers with him, his identification does not take long. First of all, Commissioners Lannert and Bootz visit the Mendts. The couple openly admit that they are happy about Albrecht's death because he was able to continue his life after his release, unlike their dead daughter Mareike. At the same time, they accuse the commissioners of having been abandoned by the police. On the one hand, because the accomplice was never searched for, and on the other hand, because the state authorities could not prevent the rape video from being distributed via the Internet. Just as the commissioners are leaving the house, Bootz receives a phone call that Albrecht has been killed with pentobarbital . Since this drug can only be legally acquired by licensed doctors and Frank Mendt is a doctor, they arrest him for the time being.

During interrogation, Mendt suggests that he knows the name of the previously unknown accomplice. Bootz offers him to speak out for an immediate arrest, provided that Mendt gives him his name and also confesses to Albrecht's murder. Mendt does not admit anything of the kind and can leave the police station unmolested. Thereupon the prosecutor Alvarez orders the observation of the Mendts, but both manage to go into hiding with their mobile home. In the meantime, in the Mendts' house, the forensics department discovered evidence that Albrecht was there. Due to the urgent suspicion of murder, a large manhunt for the couple starts. At the same time, forensic scientist Banovic can make a tattooed hand recognizable in the video of the rape by enlarging a reflection. This tattoo was the hallmark of a motorcycle gang that, in addition to Albrecht, also belonged to Stephan Freund. Since all other members of the gang have already died, the commissioners take Freund into protective custody.

At the end of the eventful day, Maja Bootz leaves her father's apartment for a birthday party at which an overnight stay is also planned. When Bootz appears there the next morning to pick up his daughter as agreed, it turns out that she left earlier alone. Bootz wants to call his daughter on her cell phone, but instead Frank Mendt answers on the other end of the line. If Bootz wanted to see his daughter alive again, he would have an hour to hand over the Mendts Stephan Freund. Worried about his daughter, Bootz confides in his colleague Lannert, but implores him to keep it to himself. However, Lannert does not adhere to it, since Bootz cannot judge impartially in his condition, and informs the prosecutor, who then has to release Bootz from duty. The ongoing large-scale manhunt is being expanded and a fictitious handover is being prepared together with a SEK official who is supposed to take on the role of Freund. However, this fails because Frank Mendt immediately shoots the alleged accomplice at the handover location. The SEC man goes down and Mendt brings the gun to his mouth. However, when he notices how the officer protected by a bulletproof vest gets up again, he wants to shoot him again, and Bootz has to intervene. He has to admit to Mendt that it is not Stephan Freund at all.

Bootz receives another ultimatum from Mendt. In the absence of alternatives, he single-handedly gets the real accomplice out of prison and drives him to the handover location. Lannert and Bootz's ex-wife Julia meet Simone Mendt at the same time at her daughter's grave. When Lannert tries to confront her, she kills herself with poison. Meanwhile, Bootz meets Frank Mendt at the delivery point and explains to him that he has a conflict of conscience and that he cannot hand him over Freund. Mendt is irritated and suddenly abandons his plan to rigorously seek revenge. Instead, he now wants to find out how far Bootz would go for his daughter's life. Mendt hands the inspector a pistol and promises to release Maja if Bootz shoots himself. Bootz puts the gun to his neck and pulls the trigger, but it is not fully loaded. Mendt then reveals to Bootz where he can find his daughter and shoots himself.

background

The film was shot from January 20, 2015 to February 20, 2015 in Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Rastatt and Baden-Baden. The premiere took place on May 22, 2015 in Stuttgart at the 2015 SWR Summer Festival .

reception

Audience ratings

The first broadcast of Preis des Lebens on October 25, 2015 was seen by 9.23 million viewers in Germany and achieved a market share of 25.0% for Das Erste .

Reviews

“What's going on in the Stuttgart 'Tatort'? The thriller has gained momentum over the last few episodes, the last one over Stuttgart 21 was a large-scale social panorama, brutal, biting, politically explosive down to the smallest detail. Now follows a thriller in which one is just as ashamed of the inspectors' flash of lightning bolts as of the plot blunders in a row. "

- Christian Buß : Spiegel Online

“An exciting crime scene, but where the tension is always derived from the question of whether things will turn out badly, like the crime scene from Dortmund last week. In the end, the conventional approach benefits from the unconventional. "

- Holger Gertz : Süddeutsche Zeitung

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tatort: ​​The price of life at crew united
  2. ↑ Stefanie Anhalt: Pure excitement at the SWR Tatort premiere. SWR, May 22, 2015, accessed April 14, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Fabian Riedner: Primetime check: Sunday, October 25, 2015.quotemeter.de , October 26, 2015, accessed on April 13, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Christian Buß: "Tatort" on vigilante justice. I'm a doctor, I'll kill you. Spiegel Online, October 23, 2015, accessed on April 13, 2017 : "Rating: 2 out of 10 points"
  5. ↑ Holger Gertz: Inside the staidest honest men. Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 23, 2015, accessed on April 13, 2017 .
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