Crime scene: Melinda

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Melinda
Country of production Germany
original language German
Production
company		 SR
length 87 minutes
classification Episode 860 ( list )
First broadcast January 27, 2013 on Das Erste
Rod
Director Hannu Salonen
script Dirk Kämper ,
Lars Monday
production Martin Hofmann for prose media
music Michael Klaukien ,
Andreas Lonardoni
camera Wolf Siegelmann
cut Simone Sugg-Hofmann
occupation

Melinda is a television film from the crime series Tatort of ARD , SF and ORF . The film was produced for Saarländischer Rundfunk and broadcast for the first time on January 27, 2013. It is the 860th crime scene episode. For Chief Detective Jens Stellbrink ( Devid Striesow ) it is his first case after he switched from the federal police to the state police in Saarbrücken . He is supported by the chief detective Lisa Marx ( Elisabeth Brück ) and the forensic technician Horst Jordan ( Hartmut Volle ). The three work on the prosecutor Nicole Dubois ( Sandra Steinbach ). The title character Melinda is played by Mila Böhning .

Stellbrink / Marx succeed the Saarbrücker team Franz Kappel / Stefan Deininger ( Maximilian Brückner / Gregor Weber ), who were replaced by the Saarland Broadcasting Corporation after seven joint cases because their story was "told".

action

Chief Detective Jens Stellbrink telephones his mother and says that it is not a bad career change from the federal police to the state police , but ends the conversation in a hurry because he still has to go to the hardware store. There it stands out not only because of its unorthodox presentation (rubber boots, rain jacket and checkered shorts). When a 10-year-old girl who speaks a foreign language is picked up in the market, Stellbrink takes care of the little one and notices that she is fearfully hiding behind his back when she sees a dark-haired man walking into the hotel next to the hardware store . The superintendent suspects that the child has escaped from his parents and goes over with him, where he believes he is leaving it in the care of his father. As he walked, he heard screams from behind the door. Without thinking twice, he rings the doorbell again and gains entry. His gaze falls on an abused and tied up woman. The man he took to be the girl's father points a gun at him, while another is holed up with the child in the shower and is also waving a gun. He manages to outsmart the men and flee with the girl. Before that he could just ask his new colleague Lisa Marx for help and reinforcement. Marx is not quite sure what to think of the call from the colleague, whom she was to get to know tomorrow. When she overhears screaming and gunfire over the phone, she starts the police machine. Stellbrink is now hiding with the girl on the grounds of a disused amusement park in a dilapidated building.

In the hotel, the police found the injured African woman who only entered France with her daughter in the morning and booked a flight back to Metz for the evening , but only for herself. Further investigations reveal that the African woman is the wife of a high diplomat . Marx has the surrounding area searched, and Stellbrink's repeated call helps her, even if it is only fragmentary and rather distorted. She finds her colleague in a clearing and Melinda also returns. Meanwhile, the prosecutor Nicole Dubois has also arrived. The African woman's testimony with the help of an interpreter reveals that three men broke into her hotel room, beat her and took her daughter away. When the inspector later goes to "his mother" with the girl, who is named Melinda according to the ID, the child behaves as if a stranger were lying there. Stellbrink realizes that the woman no longer has a pulse. A later autopsy reveals that she was suffocated.

For Marx, the new colleague who does yoga in the office takes getting used to and is difficult to assess. Melinda reacts very cautiously to a questioning by the interpreter. The psychologist explains that Melinda did not register the mother's death at all and that the information that her father was on his way was rather aggressive and fearful. The diplomat Djafaar does not want to answer any questions and only lets the translator say that he must return to Metz immediately. When he and two other Arabs go to the car with the child, Melinda manages to hand Stellbrink a piece of paper on which she has written something in Arabic script. It prevents the inspector from having the interpreter translate the note. As Stellbrink finds out, she wrote: “Not father, not mother, fear, please help.” The prosecutor takes a stand when Stellbrink expresses his concerns. So the inspector decides to take matters into his own hands and pursues the car in which Melinda is traveling with her alleged father. At a traffic light, he manages to free the child at gunpoint. He and Melinda quickly get into Margot Müller's waiting vehicle. Ms. Müller, an elderly lady, has a very unique point of view, which is good for Stellbrink in this case. She takes both of them home with her and ignores the fact that her husband does not agree. In a conversation, she asked Stellbrink to tell her everything, maybe she could help him. In fact, when talking to her, Stellbrink becomes a lot clearer.

Dubois is furious about Stellbrink's unauthorized behavior, as she is being put under pressure from all possible sources. She hisses at Marx to get her Stellbrink here as quickly as possible. Marx first goes to the therapy center, where Melinda is supposed to be taken. When she looks around there, she realizes that something is absolutely wrong. Over the cell phone she speaks on Stellbrink's mailbox that he should stay with the little one wherever he is. Marx sees the men there again who were already there when Melinda was picked up. In the meantime, Margot Müller's husband has notified the police, and the Arabs eavesdrop on the conversation. Stellbrink and Margot Müller have now discovered through drawings by Melinda that the children are being abused as drug couriers, so-called body packers . In the meantime we also know that the interpreter smothered the African woman with a towel. During his further escape from the Müller house, Stellbrink threatens a colleague with a gun and chains her to the car, before escaping with Melinda in the police car. At that moment the Arabs come and pursue them.

Marx, who discovered many children from North Africa during her further research in the therapy center, is locked in a room by the clinic director, where she is then chained and anesthetized. When she wakes up and can free herself, the therapy center is empty. By telephone she asks Dubois to stop the search for Stellbrink that she has initiated. However, this refuses, Marx has no evidence for their claims and besides, politics is sitting on her neck and calling for Stellbrink's head and hers to do so. Using a drawing by Melinda, Stellbrink discovered where she hid the bullets with the drug. She had painted the fountain that stands in front of the “Cinderella Castle”. Back at the police station, Stellbrink repeats to the public prosecutor, who insists on her position, that Djafaar is not Melinda's father. However, she does not change her position that the child must be handed over to “his father”. That is not negotiable. Marx is stunned when Stellbrink confesses to her that he swallowed the drug balls when he saw the Arabs approaching, and that he couldn't think of a better hiding place in a hurry. He learns from the doctor that this could be life-threatening, as they were not intended to be swallowed twice. Stellbrink was already taking emetics when the car arrives to take Melinda away. Despite this handicap, he takes up the pursuit together with Lisa Marx. At a rest stop just before the French border, Marx sees the interpreter and brakes the car against Stellbrink's will. If she didn't arrest him now, he would be over the border and no longer within reach. In his distress, Stellbrink runs after the car on foot and shoots the tires, causing the vehicle to lurch. The car is already in French territory and two French police officers point the gun at Stellbrink after the men in the car were able to identify themselves as diplomats. A diplomatic passport is also available for Melinda. Marx succeeds in preventing the worst. The French officials insist that the diplomats can continue on their way unmolested - with the child. Before that, however, Stellbrink gives Melinda a cell phone and translates that she should call him as soon as she is back home with her parents. He lets the leader of the men know that if Melinda does not call, he will be in Metz tomorrow and that he will know what he looks like and that he will also know where his family lives, his wife and children. Melinda will never again be used as a drug courier. The other day Stellbrink waits for Melinda's call in his office. Marx thinks he is hopelessly naive, while the attorney who joins him lists everything he was guilty of before he even officially started. Stellbrink replies only laconically: "Do right and fear no harm." Then his mobile phone rings.

production

The crime scene episode "Melinda" was filmed from June 5 to August 31, 2012 in Saarbrücken and the surrounding area (in the Dudweiler district , in Heusweiler , Dillingen / Saar and in Niedaltdorf ).

reception

Audience rating

The first broadcast of Melinda on January 27, 2013 was seen in Germany by a total of 9.05 million viewers and achieved a market share of 23.6% for Das Erste ; In the group of 14 to 49 year old viewers , 3.08 million viewers and a market share of 19.9% ​​were achieved.

criticism

Holger Gertz from the Süddeutsche mourns the “wonderful couple of inspectors” Deininger and Kappl, played by Gregor Weber and Maximilian Brückner, who had “good ratings” and “were very popular with young people”. He considers the "experimental case", which is "more fairy tale than crime thriller", to be a failure. “Ms. Brück” came “with exactly one facial expression through the entire film.” There was “no rising warmth, no intermediate tone. Nothing. Everything [is] static, everything [is] a cliché. ”Sandra Steinbach in the role of the public prosecutor does not come off well either, she“ gesticulates like a school theater and [talks] exalted. Sentences like this: 'Take helicopters, dogs, thermal imaging cameras. Torture 'his dog, take his grandmother hostage, but bring him here for me.' ”Finally, he asks the program managers at the SR whether they are serious.

Nils Minkmar from the FAZ takes a similar line and says, “Saarland broadcasting company has managed to produce its new 'Tatort' without any regional references. This is one of the reasons why Devid Striesow could not save 'Melinda'. "Minkmar summarizes the inadequacies of the crime thriller, for example" that the emergency number 110 is still pending in Saarland, that the technology for locating cell phones has not yet been established there , neither would people there call the police, for example when shots were fired in front of a hardware store. Saarbrücken is also the only university town without a single German-speaking Arab, an Arabic-speaking German or even an Arabic interpreter. The police there are probably not aware of the far-reaching Franco-German mutual assistance agreement ”and so it goes on. “Devid Striesow plays well as always, everyone else is okay too.” Conclusion: “'Melinda' is confused and boring at the same time, silly and exhausting and for several minutes it is simply a commercial for a Range Rover car. A total disaster. "

On lokalkompass.de one could read: "The actors acted as if they had just been released from a hospital."

The Rheinische Post Online sees things a little differently and states: “For 'Tatort' traditionalists, this parody of a crime thriller will be hard to digest. However, if you get involved, you will be rewarded with 90 minutes of amusement. ”At the end it says: […]“ And the question actually arises as to how this constellation will work in the long term. But in the first episode, the audience is presented with a further development of the 'Tatort' format that is worth seeing and is worth keeping up with. "

The Mittelbayerische speaks of a trend of “turning German stars into 'Tatort' commissioners,” which is continuing and refers to the debuts of Til Schweiger , Christian Ulmen and Wotan Wilke Möhring still to come in 2013 . Devid Striesow has already started the investigation in Saarbrücken. [...] “A debut between provincial thriller and crime grotesque. Above all, however, the one-man show by Devid Striesow. ”One of the most beautiful scenes is“ when the new inspector in shorts to the tune of reggae under huge headphones pushes his shopping cart through a hardware store. ”His apartment is also mentioned, a kind of abandoned weather station above the city, a glass case high up, certainly one of the most bizarre and unlikely detective apartments in German crime thriller.

Also T-Online 's view: "As a Commissioner, the scene of the crime 'not seen: Jens parking Brink (Striesow), the' New 'in Saarbrücken, stoned and listening to reggae music, yoga makes the office, interviewed in His subconscious clears up his cases - and a few hours after starting work he has disciplinary proceedings on his side. However, we can already do without his dominatrix colleague Lisa Marx (Elisabeth Brück) and the career-minded public prosecutor Nicole Dubois (Sandra Steinbach). ”It continues:“ 'The newcomer' in Saarbrücken is wonderfully weird: Inspector Stellbrink drives Vespa, runs with shorts and rubber boots around, investigates more with the heart than with the mind, has an esoteric tic and looks as naive, mischievous and idealistic as a little boy. His figure was created with great attention to detail - and arouses curiosity. So ideal for a debut. ”The story itself was criticized as only“ moderately exciting ”and“ not very believable ”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tatort-Fundus.de. Retrieved January 27, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Michael Hanfeld: Told? In: FAZ.net of November 9, 2011. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  3. ^ Scene of the crime: Melinda at crew united. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
  4. ↑ quotemeter.de : Primetime check: Sunday, January 27, 2013 . Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  5. ^ Tatort: ​​Melinda Holger Gertz, Süddeutsche.de on January 27, 2013: More fairy tales than crime thrillers . Retrieved January 29, 2013.
  6. ^ Crime scene: Melinda Nils Minkmar in the FAZ on January 27, 2013. Retrieved on January 29, 2013.
  7. ↑ Crime scene: Melinda at lokalkompass.de. “Tatort: ​​Melinda” - This Saarland crime scene had lost its mind. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
  8. ↑ Crime scene: Melinda First case for unequal Saarbrücker Duo - RP Online. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
  9. ↑ Crime scene: Melinda  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Mittelbayerische Ein Star on the Saar . Retrieved January 29, 2013.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.mittelbayerische.de  
  10. ↑ Crime scene: Melinda T-Online: Devid Striesow as a smoking inspector with an eso-tick. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
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