Crime scene: Father Frost
| Episode of the series Tatort | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Jack Frost |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| classification | Episode 1113 ( List ) |
| First broadcast | December 22, 2019 on Das Erste |
| Rod | |
| Director | Torsten C. Fischer |
| script |
Stephan Cantz Jan Hinter |
| production | Sonja Goslicki |
| music | Fabian Römer |
| camera | Carl-Friedrich Koschnick |
| cut | Dora Vajda |
| occupation | |
| |
Father Frost is a television film from the crime series Tatort . The contribution produced by WDR is the 1113th Tatort episode and was broadcast on the first on December 22, 2019. The investigator duo Thiel and Boerne is investigating its 36th case.
action
Shortly before Christmas, Inspector Frank Thiel and Prof. Karl-Friedrich Boerne are waiting in court for the verdict in a murder trial after prosecutor Wilhelmine Klemm's final plea - the case seems to be closed for them, the circumstantial situation was clear. But due to a wave of colds, the negotiation has to be broken off and postponed. Thiel and Boerne are actually looking forward to a few quiet Christmas holidays, but then an anonymous caller answers with the message that he has Commissioner Nadeshda Krusenstern in his power. The kidnapper asks the commissioner to reopen the current case. He accuses Thiel and Boerne of not having done their job properly, because the Russian Kirill Gromow, who is on trial and allegedly killed his friend, is innocent. But Boerne is still convinced that it was Gromow's hands with which the victim was strangled. The imprints of the perpetrator's thumbs on the victim's neck were too clearly visible. But after Boerne takes another closer look at Gromow's hands, he notices that his thumbs were broken a few months ago. There was no way he could have strangled his friend with those painful thumbs. Thus, someone must have taken advantage of Gromov's drug-induced unconsciousness at the time of the crime, whose hands were violently placed around the victim's neck and squeezed. However, that requires a strong offender.
Thiel and Boerne now have to look for a new motive to find the real murderer. So they ask Sabrina Bux, the victim's sister, again. She works as a goldsmith in a jewelry store and shortly before the death of her brother had received a text message that he was allegedly threatened by Kirill Gromov. Thiel assumes that this text message was sent by the perpetrator to direct suspicion on Gromow. After Boerne succeeds in proving a very special narcotic in the victim's body, which suggests that Gromow was also incapacitated with it at the time of the crime, the investigators learned of Sabrina Bux's death. She was found hanged in her brother's apartment, but apparently no suicide note is available. Thiel doubts a suicide and now notices that Bux wanted to call him the night before, but he had not accepted the call.
In the meantime, Nadeshda develops a certain bond with her kidnapper , after all, he too comes from her Russian homeland and so conversations with one another are quite familiar. It turns out that the kidnapper, disguised as Santa Claus, is Gromov's father and his motives are therefore quite honorable.
The investigations reveal that the murdered Alexander Bux made regular study trips around the world. Lately, however, he has been traveling almost exclusively to countries known for the illegal trade in rough diamonds. Thiel and Boerne suspect that Bux was traveling as a courier and smuggled diamonds for the jewelry store in which his sister worked. In the end he probably worked on his own and brought the diamonds to the "man" alone. His actual client should not have liked that, which is why he switched off Bux. The operator of the jewelry store confirms this theory when the investigators confront her with their suspicions. Thiel and Boerne now find out that they have to concentrate on a Jörn Weig who holds the strings of the diamond smuggling in his hand and thus also committed the murders. The search for Weig leads the investigators to their kidnapped colleague at the same time, because after Weig had noticed that the police were suddenly re-investigating the old murder case, he wanted to find out why and so came across the kidnapping, which threatened to thwart his tactical plan. Thiel and Boerne now have to hurry so that they can find Nadeshda and her kidnapper in front of Weig. In a showdown, the investigators take Weig by surprise and free Nadeshda. Weig is arrested and Gromov's father gets away with a "black eye" because Nadezhda says he volunteered with Artyom.
background
The film was shot from November 13, 2018 to December 13, 2018 in Cologne, Münster and the surrounding area, including Bubenheim Castle in Nörvenich and the Mühlenhof open-air museum in Münster, giving the impression that both buildings are in the same location.
The role of Jörn Weig was played by David Bennent , who became well known in 1979 as Oskar Matzerath in the film The Tin Drum .
The piece of music that Boerne repeatedly plays at high volume on his gramophone , to the displeasure of his neighbor Thiel , is the song Black Eyes , sung by the opera singer Fyodor Iwanowitsch Chalyapin . Towards the end of the film Boerne, who apparently does not speak the Russian language, declaims text fragments of the song in order to fool Krusenstern's kidnappers into the presence of a Russian who will help. This is surprising insofar as in other episodes in the series the impression was given that the polymath Boerne speaks Russian alongside many other foreign languages.
reception
Audience rating
The first broadcast of Father Frost on December 22, 2019 was seen by 12.66 million viewers in Germany and achieved a market share of 36.2% for Das Erste .
Reviews
Christian Buß from Spiegel Online said: “The story [gets] so absurd that one believes that the actors and filmmakers (book: Jan Hinter and Stephan Cantz, director: Torsten C. Fischer) were all on the Christmas market shot away: [...] A crash 'crime scene'. A 'crime scene' crash. "
At the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Holger Gertz said: “The fact that tension can hardly be proven in the so-called crime thriller in Münster is nothing new, and when something else fills the gap, you can still see it quite well: creative madness, joke. All of this is unfortunately only available in trace elements in the episode "Father Frost" by Torsten C. Fischer [...]. Because this adventure is the so-called Christmas episode, the piece groans under a double burden. "
Tilmann P. Gangloff from tittelbach.tv rated: “'Father Frost' [...] looks like a Christmas film with little 'mistakes': because director Torsten C. Fischer and cameraman Carl-Friedrich Koschnick have repeatedly caused subtle acts of sabotage thanks to their clever camera angles . The picture design is excellent anyway; short nightmare sequences seem like small reminiscences of cheap horror films, the finale is designed in the style of expressionist silent films. Nevertheless, the crime thriller lives up to the comedic reputation of the 'Tatort' from Münster; the dialogues between the two main characters are sometimes on a cheeky comedy level, but they are as funny as ever. "
The Augsburger Allgemeine wrote: “Has the Münster crime scene worn out? In 'Father Frost' too, Boerne and Thiel squeal their way through Münster - and thus polarize more than ever. ”The press comments are also divided. "While some enthusiastically cheer every appearance of the extroverted duo, for the others there is simply too much clutter in the crime thriller."
Kino.de found that this Christmas scene is “more about suspense than slapstick”. “It works very well, because the cleverly constructed story cleverly avoids sinking into the cliché trap of a Christmas special. Thiel and Boerne do not have to sit sullenly under the Christmas tree, but are allowed to do real police work. It is excitingly staged by director Torsten C. Fischer and invites you to cheer rather than laugh. "
Web links
- Crime scene: Father Frost in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Summary of the plot of Father Frost on the ARD website
- Father Frost at Tatort-Fans.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Crime scene: Father Frost at crew united
- ^ Tatort, episode 1113: Father Frost. Accessed December 30, 2019 .
- ↑ Niklas Spitz: Primetime Check: Sunday, December 22nd, 2019.quotemeter.de , December 23rd, 2019, accessed on December 23rd, 2019 .
- ↑ Christian Buß: Christmas "crime scene" from Münster. In a mulled wine coma. In: Culture. Spiegel Online , December 20, 2019, accessed on December 20, 2019 : "2 out of 10 points"
- ↑ Holger Gertz: Tension? But please not at Christmas. In: Media. Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 20, 2019, accessed on December 20, 2019 .
- ^ Tilmann P. Gangloff : Prahl, Liefers, Kempter, Gersak, Cantz / Hinter, Fischer. Amusing and yet a thriller at tittelbach.tv , accessed on May 18, 2020.
- ↑ Press comments on the Münster crime scene at augsburger-allgemeine.de , accessed on May 18, 2020.
- ↑ Marek's "Tatort" review: Behind Christmas in Münster there is a real crime thriller at Kino.de , accessed on May 18, 2020.
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