Crime scene: long live the king!
Is it worth tuning in to the new thriller from Münster?
"Tatort: Long live the king!": Inspector Frank Thiel (Axel Prahl, r.) Hears what Prof. Karl-Friedrich Boerne (Jan Josef Liefers) has to say while Silke Haller (ChrisTine Urspruch) is there in forensic medicine helps to put on the armor.
© WDR / Thomas Kost
In the "Tatort: Long Live the King!" Thiel and Boerne from Münster have to solve the death of a lord of the castle. Is it worth switching on?
In the "Tatort: Long Live the King!" (December 13th, 8:15 pm, the first) the Münster investigators, Chief Detective Frank Thiel (Axel Prahl, 60) and forensic doctor Prof. Dr. Dr. Karl-Friedrich Boerne (Jan Josef Liefers, 56) clearing up the death of a lord of the castle who is found in knight armor in the moat of an old moated castle.
That's what the "crime scene: Long live the king!"
The "Haus Lüdecke" has a long history and is known beyond the borders of Münster. A body is found in the moat of the old moated castle – in knight armor. The dead person is the newly crowned lord of the castle Manfred Radtke (Anthony Arndt, 68). Was it an accident or is there more to it – as Commissioner Thiel suspects?
Only a few months ago the former fair king Radtke bought the venerable castle and wanted to organize medieval games here with his family in the future. Central theme: the bloodthirsty story of the Anabaptists in Münster. Boerne is appalled by this; You don't have fun with Münster's blackest chapter! But the preparations are already under way. Does the whole project have to be called off in view of the dead man?
Is it worth switching on?
Yes and no. "Tatort: Long live the king!" is certainly not a masterpiece from Münster, no matter how much you like the two cult investigators. Rather, this thriller babbles for an hour and a half, like the water in said moat. Would you tune in on a repetition? Probably not.
It remains to be seen whether the lack of creative ideas in the story and the hardly existent but highly valued word skirmishes between Thiel and Boerne between Thiel and Boerne should be blamed on the scriptwriter Benjamin Hessler. After all, he was part of the brilliant team of authors of the countless award-winning crime drama series "4 Blocks" (2017-2019) and knows his trade. The shooting conditions made more difficult by Corona and the necessary script adjustments certainly also contributed to this.
"When we were finally allowed to start filming preparations after the lockdown, filming under Corona conditions was new territory for all of us," explains director and Grimme Prize winner Buket Alakus (49, "Another League"). And producer Iris Kiefer (filmpool fiction) adds: "Fortunately, we didn't have to make any major changes to the crime thriller, but individual scenes and especially the showdown were revised due to the conditions and adapted to the situation."
But there are also aspects why it pays to tune into this Münster crime thriller. "Finally we were able to tell a big, but so far hardly recorded chapter of the history of Münster in the 'Tatort': the Anabaptists who had besieged the city with their bloody regiment and had to pay heavily for it", explains WDR editor Sophie Seitz.
"Even as a primary school child in Münster, the story gave me an eerie shiver, especially since the three – now modernized – cages at the central Lamberti Church are a highly visible memorial for the medieval handling of the remains of the defeated leaders of the Anabaptists "Seitz continues.
It also gets exciting and interesting in the thriller when an ex-student of Prof. Boerne, Rosemarie Sieber (Mai Duong Kieu, 33, "Bad Banks") begins to charm him. And at least a pinch of the typical Thiel Boerne crime thriller charm is provided by actress Mechthild Großmann (71). The native of Münster, with her deep and smoky voice as public prosecutor Wilhelmine Klemm, makes her sayings wonderfully dry as dust.