Shots in a shopping center, the police arrive, mass panic. It is impossible to see who has the weapon in hand. Instead, familiar phrases can be heard. “People who commit such an act are always those who are deeply offended,” says an expert on a news channel. “Ultimately, however, it is always a little thing that brings the barrel to overflow.” Then the series jumps back in time five days. This is not just about who the perpetrator is, but above all about the trigger that caused the person to commit this bloodbath.
In the series At the attack – the power of hurt the sixth and last episode is called “Day X”. The assassination is shown here. In the five previous episodes, a number of characters are introduced who could potentially become the perpetrator. There is Georg (Murathan Muslu), a muscle-packed security guard in the shopping center, whom people say a short fuse while he takes care of his blind wife (Antje Traue). The real hothead of the security team is his colleague Mario (Paul Wollin), who keeps a revolver at home and is increasingly intimidating his work affair Saschi (Lea Zoë Voss). This is one of the reasons why the hairdresser keeps an eye on the apparently relaxed waiter Lorenz (Jonas Holdenrieder). She only found out later about his time in juvenile prison. Businesswoman Mira (Julia Koschitz) and her mother Ingeborg (Ullrike Willenbacher) as well as the doctor Sarah (Johanna Wokalek), whose practice threatens to go bankrupt and can only survive thanks to the help of her helper (Daniel Langbein), who can survive in her, complete the possible group of perpetrators is in love.
Each of the characters is so tortured that you can trust him to commit the assassination
Each of the approximately 45-minute episodes focuses on one of these characters and always tells a personal drama. The series has set itself the task of torturing the characters within the five days before the crime in such a way that the viewer can trust each and every one of them to commit the assassination attempt in the shopping center without a hint of doubt. Creating tension in this way has two sides: On the one hand, the narrative works thanks to the classic crime thriller method, because of course you want to know who was the culprit in the end. On the other hand, individual motives that could ultimately lead to the deed appear very constructed and in their harmlessness even sometimes cynical – if you compare the backgrounds of assassins from the real world with it.
Clear, At the attack – the power of hurt aims at the little things that usually turn already mentally stressed people into perpetrators. Using triangular relationships or stress at work to bring the above-cited barrel to overflowing simplifies the perpetrator profiles all too much. In addition, the series leaves out almost all of the political and racist motives. Because director Umut Dag and screenwriter Agnes Pluch have chosen a shopping mall as a filming and crime scene, they provoke a comparison to the real assassination attempt in Munich’s Olympic shopping center, regardless of whether they are taken into account or not. Here, after the media initially reported that a confused individual perpetrator had run amok, the authorities have now demonstrated right-wing extremist motivation.
The crime mystery may be told in an exciting way and packaged in high-quality pictures and mostly appealing performance. At the stop but ultimately fails because it does not provide a really illuminating, comprehensive picture of the psyche of an assassin in a period chosen that is too short.
At the attack – The power of hurt, Tuesday and Wednesday three episodes from 9.45 p.m., ZDF Neo and media library