The patriarch doesn’t hesitate: “If you give up the family, you’re dead.” The old man is in prison, but he still has control over his family. During a visit, he makes it clear to his son David (Louis Guillaume) what he expects from him: that the 13-year-old, who is not yet of criminal responsibility, is solely committed to family honor. So he’s in trouble when his cousins rob a jewelry store. And he holds the door shut when a customer tries to escape, but in the end she is dead. And he takes the gun that his cousins put in his hand and aims it at the only witness. For the honor.
You’ll know immediately who committed the attack if you haven’t taken a bathroom break within the first few minutes. It doesn’t take long for investigators Thorsten Lannert (Richy Müller) and Sebastian Bootz (Felix Klare) to discover the clan. But which of them was there? Who is the murderer? To find out, they cling to the weakest link: David.
Is it okay to gain a teenager’s trust?
This is the setup in the crime thriller “Zerrissen” from Stuttgart. Everyone is ambivalent. David, who loves his family but wants to get out of the mess. His carer Annarosa, who lived on the streets and hates the so-called system, even though she knows that it finances her work at the youth center. And finally, the investigators who want to solve a case, but are divided over the question of whether it is okay to gain the trust of a teenager in order to achieve their goal. Of course not.
Nobody trusts the other, nobody trusts themselves in the film by Sönke Lars Neuwöhner (book) and Martin Eigler (writer and director). And everyone wants to win over David with his clear, childish face. The clan, the police, the social worker. Who can he trust? Who can trust him? Louis Guillaume confidently and quietly plays the vulnerable David. The tension in the film comes primarily from the question: Will he manage to break away from his criminal family? If you’re looking for a quiet psychogram instead of a criminal hunt: tune in.
The first, Sunday, 8:15 p.m.
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