It’s a sensational story that writer Stan Gold (Detlev Buck) experienced: After a plane crash in Paraguay, indigenous residents rescued him and he lived with them in the jungle for 15 years. Gold recorded his experiences in a book that became a bestseller. Forensic doctor Prof. Karl-Friedrich Boerne (Jan Josef Liefers) wants to benefit from the fame and acts as a promoter of Münster’s literary scene. At a festive gala he honors Gold with an award and gives him the position of town clerk. The joy only lasts for a short time: after the award ceremony, Gold lies in his dressing room and is in danger of suffocating from an allergic shock. The writer was deliberately injected with bee venom. Commissioner Frank Thiel (Axel Prahl) has to find out who is trying to kill Gold – because it’s not the only attack.
Detlev Buck celebrated success as a director with films like “Männerpension” and “Knallhart”. In this “Tatort” episode he shines as the main actor. Buck has already made numerous short appearances in various films. Among other things, in 2021 he had a supporting role in “Tatort: Everything Comes Back” with Maria Furtwängler. He can now be seen alongside Axel Prahl and Jan Josef Liefers for over 90 minutes. The 61-year-old plays the eccentric writer Stan Gold so convincingly, as if he had never done anything else. Buck skillfully combines humor and madness in this character. Maybe because there’s a little bit of it in him too. “I haven’t approached it. It’s me. It’s in my center. It’s in me. And I can’t get out of it either,” he told WDR.
It’s not just the investigators who are increasingly confused by Gold’s anecdotes – the viewers are too. Guerrilla warriors, rebel leaders, weapons deliveries and relationship stories: screenwriter Thorsten Wettcke went a bit overboard. A serious concern of the film, however, is only touched on in passing.
Inspector Thiel can’t take all the excitement surrounding Stan Gold seriously: He still knows the writer as a pot-smoking schoolmate under the name Horst “Hotte” Koslowski. “That Hotte would write a book. I would have bet that Pauli would win the Champions League,” jokes Thiel. Professor Boerne, on the other hand, is blinded by Gold’s fame. When his agent and partner Sabina Kupfer (Eva Verena Müller) offers the forensic doctor to write a book as well, he is hooked.
A welcome change in difficult times: The “Tatort” from Münster always provides 90 entertaining minutes. That also applies to this crazy jungle story.
Thiel and Boerne recently investigated these cases:
