Crime scene: cockfight

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Cockfight
Country of production Austria
original language German
Production
company		 ORF
length 85 minutes
classification Episode 358 ( List )
First broadcast April 20, 1997 on ORF
Rod
Director Hans Noever
script Gerhard J. Rekel
production Heinz Ambrosch
music Nellis Du Biel
camera Wolfgang Koch
cut Gerda Ghanim
occupation

Hahnenkampf is an Austrian television thriller from 1997. The script was written by Gerhard J. Rekel and directed by Hans Noever . It was the 358th crime scene episode and the first case of Chief Inspector Kant ( Wolfgang Huebsch ) as the main investigator. Fichtl, who was promoted to chief inspector, and his team are dealing with the death of a chicken farmer who ran factory farms and had many enemies.

action

The little farmer's daughter Fanny Xaver finds neighbor Bert Aumüller dead in a barrel that was intended for gassing the male chicks. The newly promoted Chief Inspector Fichtl and Chief Inspector Kant find out at the scene that Aumüller was first knocked unconscious and then gassed in the bin. Kant wants to question Ms. Aumüller, but her managing director Johannes Herzig rejects Kant. He told Kant that the neighbor, the organic farmer Xaver, did not like the way Aumüller's chicken ranched. Xaver tried to hinder the production of Aumüller's company, it was a kind of "cockfight", he himself was at a birthday party at the time of the crime. Kant and his new assistant, the inspector Varanasi, visit Hans Xaver’s farm; Xaver is an old school friend of Varanasi. Xaver looks nervous and denies having anything to do with the murder. However, he admits to having had a quarrel with Aumüller, as Xaver accuses Aumüller of denouncing Xaver's court in the press as a source of salmonella. Beatrice, Aumüller's wife, would have had a relationship with Herzig, who also had a motive for Aumüller's murder. Xaver flees from the officers, Kant sees this as an admission of guilt, but Varanasi disagrees and suggests that Kant investigate undercover with the Aumüllers, as they are currently posting a job advertisement and they do not know him.

The first investigations show that Ms. Aumüller has no alibi for the time of the crime, but Herzig was at a birthday party. Several legal proceedings initiated by Bert Aumüller were pending against Xaver, among other things for trespassing and property damage. Equipped by Fichtl with a direction finder and microphone, Varanasi starts work on the Aumüller farm, while Fichtl and Kant take a look around the Xaver farm. There they discover that the fugitive Xaver has to be present before they can confront him, but he manages to escape with Fichtl's company car. Varanasi is harassed by Herzig on the farm, Fichtl can tell him that there is nothing against him, Beatrice Aumüller, on the other hand, had a case of insurance fraud against her years ago. Herzig finds out that Varanasi's statements about his previous professional activity are incorrect. When confronted by Aumüller, Varanasi poses as a former prisoner who would have sat for insurance fraud in order to gain her trust. When Kant shows up and confronts Aumüller with the fact that her husband has just had a will drawn up against her and therefore wants to take her to the presidium, Varanasi jumps up and tells Kant that he needs an arrest warrant to take Ms. Aumüller with him. Varanasi wins Beatrice Aumüller's trust through the campaign, much to Herzig's displeasure.

The laboratory can inform Kant that no traces of salmonella have been found on Xaver's farm. Varanasi follows Beatrice Aumüller in the evening, she meets a man whom she gives money. Xaver arrives and threatens them with a weapon, but Aumüller can disarm and knock down the mentally weak Xaver. While the police are finding Fichtl's car, Varanasi is talking to Xaver, who sees the murder motive in Beatrice Aumüller, who now inherits rich and her lover. He asks Varanasi to take care of his traumatized daughter Fanny. Her mother died a few years ago in a barn fire, the fleeing cattle trampled her to death in a panic and Fanny had to watch it, she has been silent ever since. Varanasi promises him this if he surrenders, but Xaver escapes again and Fanny prevents Varanasi's pursuit. He brings Fanny to the station and shows Kant his video recordings of Aumüller and her lover. The officials find out that the apparent lover, however, is Beatrice's brother Franz Steiner. When Kant wanted to see Bert Aumüller's documents, Herzig made a document disappear, Varanasi was able to secure it, it was Herzig's termination without notice by Aumüller. When Kant speaks directly to Herzig about his relationship with Aumüller, the latter frankly admits that Aumüller wanted to terminate him because he suspected that he had an eye on his wife. Still, he has nothing to do with the murder. Varanasi discovers a chamber to which, according to Herzig, only Aumüller himself had access, since Herzig did not want any problems, the chamber remains closed now. During the night, Varanasi is woken up by a stranger sneaking around the courtyard. When Varanasi looks, he falls into a trap and is caught in a net.

The next morning, Kant visits Ms. Aumüller and demands access to the chamber, but she claims that she has no key. Kant finds the chamber broken into, in it he finds Varanasi's service weapon and shortly afterwards he is bound and gagged. He couldn't see who overpowered him in the dark. Meanwhile, Kant and Fichtl anonymously receive a bottle with an antibiotic that is used to combat acute cases of salmonella. Presumably Xaver was the sender who wanted to prove that Aumüller himself had salmonella on the farm. His veterinarian confirmed to Kant that one of Aumüller's stables had been contaminated. In Fanny's notepad, Kant finds drawings by her that deal with both the accident at the time and Aumüller's death. Kant tries to make sense of this. Meanwhile, Varanasi, who is getting closer and closer to Beatrice Aumüller, learns how her relationship with her husband was. He was a greedy, child-hating person. One day when he caught Fanny on his property, he lured her into the laboratory and tortured her by showing her how to gass up the male chicks. At that moment Beatrice would have wished that her husband would end up in the deadly gas.

Kant goes to Herzig and asks him about the salmonella, but Herzig blocks it. Only when Kant threatened arrest did Herzig admit that the Aumüller farm had continued to sell eggs despite the salmonella. Kant arrests him for assisting in the negligent homicide, since a little girl died in the salmonella poisoning that Aumüller Xaver had blamed for. Kant seeks out little Alexandra's mother to find out where she bought the deadly eggs. Kant notices a man in Alexandra's room, which his mother has prepared like a shrine, the man flees when Kant sees him. It's Beatrice's brother Franz Steiner, he was the child's father and had brought the eggs with him from his brother-in-law's farm. Steiner goes to his sister and searches Varanasi's room, where he finds his service weapon. When Varanasi returns from a trip with Beatrice, he expects them and threatens Varanasi with his service weapon. Varanasi succeeds in overpowering Steiner, but Beatrice Varanasi's weapon gets into her hands. Since she has now fallen in love with Varanasi and feels betrayed by him, she wants to gass him in the same barrel in which her husband was killed. Franz takes the gun from his sister and forces her to go to Varanasi in the bin. She deserved to die because she knew the farm had salmonella. So she was also to blame for the death of his daughter. At that moment, Beatrice realizes that her brother killed her husband Bert.

Fichtl hears Varanasis' call for help over the tracking device and can notify Kant and guide him to the courtyard, who can free the two at the last moment. Meanwhile, Steiner is killed on the run with Varanasi's motorcycle.

Audience and background

The scene of the cockfight reached 5.89 million viewers when it was first broadcast on ARD, which corresponds to a rate of 17.04%.

criticism

TV Spielfilm rated the film as mediocre and commented: "Mighty wings flapping around small eggs".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hahnenkampf audience rating at tatort-fundus.de, accessed on April 25, 2015.
  2. ^ Hahnenkampf short review at tvspielfilm.de, accessed on April 25, 2015.
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May 4th 1997: Nightmare