Wilsberg: Written on your face

Episode in the Wilsberg series
Original title	Written on the face
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Production ; company	Warner Bros. ITVP ; on behalf of ZDF
length	90 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
classification	Episode 64 ( List )
First broadcast	November 2, 2019 on ZDF
Rod
Director	Dominic Müller
script	Mario Sixtus
music	Dirk Leupolz
camera	Ralf M. Mendle
cut	Sebastian Bonde
occupation
	Leonard Lansink : Georg Wilsberg; Oliver Korittke : Ekkehardt Talkötter; Ina Paule Klink : Alex Holtkamp; Roland Jankowsky : Overbeck; Arnd Klawitter : Bruno Korati; Suzan Anbeh : Katty Korati; Christian Näthe : Elmar Barnack; Mirjam Weichselbraun : Sabrina Piewinger; Jörg Pintsch : Benjamin Heller; Stefan Haschke : Commissioner Harald Drechshage; Mai Duong Kieu : Commissioner Thuong Nhi Nguyen; Janina Flieger : Inge Barnack; Timo Hübsch : Manuel Jellinek; Andreas Merker : Police officer Lüdke; Alexander Milo : Dimitri; Juri Senft : Ingo Moll; Martina Eitner-Acheampong : Operator of the snack bar "Grillparadies"; Christoph Hilger : Porter; Christian Birko-Flemming : Hotel porter Roth; Niklas Iwannek : Investor Face23; Gabriele Schulze : Mrs. Ahlers;

The 64th episode of the Wilsberg television film series is written on the face . The film is based on the Wilsberg character by Jürgen Kehrer . Directed by Dominic Müller , the screenplay was written by Mario Sixtus . For the first time, the plot of a Wilsberg episode is moved to Bielefeld . The film premiered on October 13, 2019 at the Cologne Film Festival and the TV premiere on ZDF on November 2, 2019.

action

Ekki is traveling to Bielefeld for the 20th anniversary of tax investigator Elmar Barnack, whom he knows from his student days, and takes Wilsberg with him, who wants to visit his friend Manni Höch there. Anna Springer is on vacation and does not play for the first time in this episode.

On the same day, the “Face23” smartphone app from the company of the same name will be presented in Bielefeld, recognizing people via smartphone cameras and displaying all of the data available about them on the Internet. A pilot test of the app is to run in Bielefeld. Face23 is severely torpedoed by data protection activists . The house of IT celebrity Benjamin Heller, who pioneered the app, was attacked during the night by masked people with attack dogs , with Heller, who was terrified of dogs , suffered a fatal cardiac arrest .

It quickly turns out that it was not the dogs that were the cause, but that Heller's pacemaker was specifically switched off with a special remote control available from specialist dealers. It is simply not known who owns or operated them. Urgent suspect is Alex, who has just revived an old student relationship with Benjamin and was appointed by him as sole heir. Shortly before his death, she was alone with him in the house, where he told her that after his death all data in his possession would be automatically and irretrievably deleted. This system is activated as soon as he has not logged on to his mobile phone for 42 hours.

For Wilsberg and Ekki, the possible perpetrators are: Elmar Barnack, who used to work as a porn actor and whose films from that time are now known everywhere through Face23, which suddenly destroyed his marriage and his life, and Bruno Korati, who provided the program code, then stole the Heller and earned his fortune with it. Ekki sees one of the masks with which the attack on Heller's house was carried out at Barnack's.

While Wilsberg, Ekki and, against their will, Overbeck, who wanted to come to the presentation of the app, try to help Alex, they track down the criminal machinations of "Face23". A tricky story of confusion sets in when Ekki steals Heller's cell phone in the Bielefeld evidence chamber in order to deactivate the deletion mechanism there and instead leaves his own there, whereby all messages addressed to him reach the Bielefeld investigator Drechshage, who is working against the private team of investigators. Some dangerous situations resolve without police help.

Barnack takes revenge on Sabrina Piewinger, the boss of Face23, by kidnapping her and Alex on a park bench and threatening to shoot Piewinger as soon as more than four strangers recognize him there as a porn actor. While the fifth is already looking at his cell phone, Heller's programmed data deletion goes into action, as Ekki, despite many efforts, did not manage to unlock Heller's cell phone in time, and Face23 no longer works.

As Wilsberg finds out from Bruno Korati, Korati's wife Katty von Heller has been blackmailed for years with photos of a previous one-night stand . When she found out about the planned protest against him, she drove there, switched off his pacemaker with the remote control and hoped that the heart failure would be attributed to the action.

reception

Audience rating

At the premiere of In face written on November 2, 2019 ZDF , the film in Germany was seen by a total of 6.05 million viewers and a market share of 20.3 percent.

criticism

The film critic Tilmann P. Gangloff wrote in the Frankfurter Rundschau : " More decisive for the quality of the film than the various murder motifs, however, is the clever construction of the script, which repeatedly hits unexpected hooks. The film also draws its great charm from the many original ideas that Sixtus and director Dominic Müller have built into the story. "

particularities

Kachelhaus Bielefeld and Mirabellenplatz 2015

The exterior shots were taken in Bielefeld. The film was shot on Sparrenburg , in Hagenbruchstrasse and Neustädter Strasse. You can see u. a. the tiled house , the bunker No.7 in Neustädter Straße 17, the old town hall , the art gallery , the passage arches under the buttresses of St. Jodokus and the Bürgerpark . The scene, in typical road movie style, in which Inspector Overbeck's company car is stolen, was filmed at a historic gas station in the north of Cologne.

The reference to the running gag "Bielefeld" is superfluous, since the entire episode takes place in Bielefeld. The sign “Bielefeld 13 km” from episode 60 is in front of the gas station where Overbeck's car is lost.

The episode contains several internal running gags:

Wilsberg and Manni meet several times at the “Grillparadies” snack bar, but Wilsberg only ever finds out that Manni had to leave shortly before. The two never meet, Manni does not appear in the film at all.
In a generally used navigation app, the neighboring positions of the snack bar “Grillparadies” and the company headquarters of Face23 are reversed, so that those who are unfamiliar with the location always find themselves in the wrong place.
Whenever Overbeck meets Drechshage, he inadvertently gives him cause for sarcastic humiliation. In return, Overbeck corrupts his name to Drecksack . Even Overbeck's correct references to dangerous situations make him look ridiculous, because they always broke up when the police arrived.