A terrible bloodbath occurs in Göttingen: a parcel driver goes crazy and drives into a crowd. The police are investigating negligent homicide or even murder. But who is to blame: the driver – or the company behind it? During their investigation, detectives Charlotte Lindholm (Maria Furtwängler) and Anaïs Schmitz (Florence Kasumba) zero in on the parcel service provider, even though the driver, as an independent subcontractor of a subcontractor, was not permanently employed there. When the inspectors want to take a closer look at the working conditions, their investigation is suddenly torpedoed. Is criminal director Gerd Liebig (Luc Feit) behind it? Charlotte Lindholm has a terrible suspicion – she takes a closer look at the private life of her boss and his wife Tereza (Bibiana Beglau).
A good film, be it a drama or a crime thriller, usually works best when it does not reflect researched knowledge, but rather conveys an emotional story told about the characters. The strand about domestic violence that opens in the second half is touching. Because it shows the full extent of the problem: the men who beat them are often not believed to be capable of this brutality, the victims often cover up the crime out of shame – and it is difficult for outsiders to break through the wall of silence.
This “crime scene” actually contains two stories – and that’s one too many. Both have their justification, but there are big differences in the way they are told: While the domestic abuse is told very sensitively, the working conditions of the parcel drivers are more dutifully read and reproduced. The precarious conditions in the industry were only discussed in the Cologne “crime scene” at the beginning of December. In general, the question arises as to whether it is really the task of a crime novel to constantly denounce social problems. The head of the DDP delivery service sums it up when he says to Lindholm: “I thought they were from the criminal police, not from the morality police.”
Charlotte Lindholm’s flirtation has been brewing for a long time. In this episode, the inspector ends up in bed with Nick (Daniel Donskoy), the husband of her colleague Anaïs Schmitz. It goes without saying that the two strong women will no longer be able to work together after this. And so Lindholm’s punitive transfer to Göttingen ends – in the next episode she returns to Hanover. But we will also see Florence Kasumba again as Anaïs Schmitz: She will soon be investigating alongside Wotan Wilke Möhring in northern Germany.
Even if the film has weaknesses, it’s worth watching just to see this great team of investigators at work for the last time.
Charlotte Lindholm and Anaïs Schmitz also investigated these cases:
