Already spectacular, like the direction of this Munich crime scene immediately exorcised any sluggishness typical of the crime scene. The inspectors Batic and Leitmayr (Miroslav Nemec and Udo Wachtveitl) don’t have to keep rocking from here to there in the company car, they put on their bulletproof and still perfectly fitting vests and run through narrow hallways together with young colleagues from the special task force. They pant up stairs, through warehouses, guns at the ready. It’s so skilfully built and staged, as if they were rushing through the panoramas of the shooting games that “Game Over” is about. A policewoman has been shot dead during a routine check, the killers may themselves be police officers who meet online in the “Munich Sheriffs” gaming group. And maybe it was the case that someone here couldn’t distinguish between a game and seriousness: This assumption is always in the air quickly when a “Counter Strike” crack causes worse things in the real world.
Poor wire-haired dachshund – “The children didn’t want him – too old”
However, the film by director Lancelot von Naso (book by Stefan Holtz and Florian Iwersen) doesn’t make it that easy, the gamers aren’t potential gunmen here. The play remains complex even though it also describes gaming as a phenomenon of late capitalism. You can earn good and, above all, quick money in the scene. You are admired by fans – although assistant Kalli Hammermann (Ferdinand Hofer) interprets this admiration a bit too boldly. Of course, you also run the risk of becoming dependent. The e-sports hero Oskar Weber (Yuri Völsch) is encouraged by his father to continue playing, but his mother prevents him from playing, which makes the boy completely freak out – and of course adds another countdown to the story: will he be able to play in time become? And if so, at what price?
Batic and Leitmayr, classic analog greyheads, regard the foreign world of gamers with distance, but also with interest. That’s what he lives on crime scene: Despite all their routine, the investigators look at their new case with a fresh perspective. And this time they fortunately don’t flirt with their age – something like that is elegantly told in the overtones. When a wire-haired dachshund appears, assistant Ritschy Semmler says: “The children didn’t want him – too old.” In general, the book contains some beautifully ambiguous sequences, for example a young woman deeply involved in the events says: “I learned to be a teacher – but I hate children.” Because that’s what “Game Over” is about: how people gamble.
The first, Sunday, 8:15 p.m.
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