During a revolt in a Kiel prison, a prisoner escapes. This is, of all people, the woman murderer Kai Korthals (Lars Eidinger), whom Inspector Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) hunted for a long time and finally put behind bars. Now he wanders through Kiel, leaving a trail of blood behind him and looking for contact with Borowski. A cat-and-mouse game develops in which Mila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik) also finds herself in great danger.
A villain like him is rare on German television. Kai Korthals, played by Lars Eidinger, can compete with psychopaths like Hannibal Lecter or Anton Chigurh from “No Country for Old Men”, with whom he shares the hairstyle. During his first appearance in 2012 in “Tatort: ??Borowski and the Silent Guest”, Korthals terrified the audience by entering women’s apartments in a desperate search for affection and murdering them if they did not return his love. At the end of the episode he was able to escape, so there was a reunion three years later in “Borowski and the Return of the Silent Guest”. This time the inspector’s friend, psychologist Frieda Jung (Maren Eggert), was among the victims. She survived – but the relationship was over, making the case personal for Bourne.
The final film “Borowski and the Good Man” from 2021 shows how closely the two are connected: the police officer and the criminal. They seem like two sides of the same coin. Who is good, who is evil – for Borowski these categories are blurred. Especially since the roles are reversed: he, who usually hunts the crooks, suddenly becomes the hunted himself.
This is to bring to a close a trilogy that started off great. But unfortunately the finale is a bit of a failure. This is mainly due to the implausible plot: Despite all the freedom that one has to allow fictional stories, a little logic and comprehensibility wouldn’t hurt. We already knew from the first two films that Kai Korthals goes in and out of apartments at will. But the fact that the murderer, who is wanted throughout Kiel, can move freely around the city and even walk into police headquarters unmolested – that’s a bit too much of a good thing. The final scene tops it off with its forced drama.
Borowski is strangely apathetic and passive throughout the entire episode – much to Mila Sahin’s annoyance: “You’re doing your job according to the rules,” she accuses her colleague. But he has long been floating in completely different, intellectual and philosophical spheres: “I want him to disappear from the world. He no longer exists,” he murmurs. Bourne and the Good Man” is the name of the episode, but it primarily deals with the existence of evil in the world. Only his new housekeeper, whom he admiringly calls “Mary Poppins”, manages to bring him back to reality .
Even if this is the weakest of the three Borowski “crime scenes” with Lars Eidinger – the film is still worth seeing. So tune in, it’s still worth repeating.
The “Tatort” episode “Borowski and the Good Man” was first broadcast on October 3, 2021. ARD will repeat the film on Friday, October 27th at 10:20 p.m.
The Kiel commissioners Borowski and Sahin also investigated these cases:
