On Whit Monday it’s between the two ambitious crime scenes from Munich last week and from Franconia next week to Vienna. And that’s the way it is that Lieutenant Colonel Moritz Eisner (Harald Krassnitzer) and Major Bibi Fellner (Adele Neuhauser) just need to walk down a corridor and even that isn’t boring. Assumption: Has to do with the fact that the two are real friends. Although, of course, also loners, but different than usual in television police departments. Kind of a loner. When the bouncer of a Georgian mafia nightclub, in front of which a dead man lies, stands up in front of Eisner and says: “Look, Bubi, you’re doing your job and I’m mine,” Fellner is touched: “Did she buy you?”
It gets uncomfortable when Eisner stands in Fellner’s doorway before dawn
The episode “Azra” by Dominik Hartl (director) and Sarah Wassermair (screenplay) works with the classic motif of a clan narrative, from Corleone to Hamady: The family business has reached the point where you are working on an honorable reputation, on a network in society and politics. Or as someone in the Revier puts it: If someone cheats you out of 200 euros, it’s a crime, if it’s 200,000 euros it’s politics. In any case, the dead man is the brother of the head of the family, Beka Datviani (Lasha Bakradze), and the brothers were at odds, as befits a serious mafia film.
Azra (Mariam Hage) rises from bouncer to bodyguard for the Datviani boss.
(Photo: ARD Degeto/ORF/Felix Vratny)
Of course, it’s strange that the Georgians speak a lot of Georgian, but accidentally switch to German when the viewer needs to get a feel for what’s going on. The fact that the episode is still exciting is because Eisner does something stupid that makes others ashamed, and the cheeky bouncer Azra, who is actually an informant, can no longer be found. When Eisner stands in Fellner’s door before dawn, completely taken aback about himself, it becomes uncomfortable for everyone.
What follows looks like the search for a colleague in mortal danger in a crime thriller. But Eisner’s shame is also told in the air chambers of the pictures. You wouldn’t have credited him with any of that. And at this point there are doubts about the plot: about the fact that Eisner, against all agreements, let this Azra (Mariam Hage), a junkie kid he recruited off the street, go in to the dangerous Datvianis. Because she’s dying for this assignment, because she’s pushing, whining, scolding and, worst of all, questioning his trust in her. But if a case is solved after 75 minutes, then the end is not the end.
The first, Monday, 8:15 p.m.
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