This review was published when Tatort first aired on February 9, 2020. Now the case is repeated in the first, which is why we are republishing the text.
The Reeperbahn film – a changing myth. In the 1950s, prostitutes had to let Hans Albers tease them: “Come on, dear little one, be mine, don’t say no!” The Hamburg director Jürgen Roland saved himself a little lard in his St. Pauli variations of the sixties and seventies, but the honor of the crooks was still an ingredient in his stories, which featured North German characters called Läpke and Paschke, Rudi and Susi and Frieda and Hansen.
Now, in the Reeperbahncrime scene from NDR, the name of the child murderer is Matei Dimescu, and a woman named Voica Barbu is said to have a whore passport issued. Because today Eastern European gangs rule the neighborhood, they smuggle children in as contract killers, where in the old days, in old St. Pauli, the thugs sealed their deals with a handshake. At least that’s what people say, and investigator Thorsten Falke (Wotan Wilke Möhring), who used to work as a bouncer in the neighborhood, also believes in it. To celebrate the day, he pours himself a shot of his fresh milk, just like he did back then.
cool mile? Maybe. good mile? Never.
“Die goldene Zeit” by director Mia Spengler (book: Georg Lippert) tells of binge drinkers and flat-rate fuckers in the event-fixated present. Everything is consumed by people who aren’t afraid to rave about the “hot mile”. Another kebab, another vodka Red Bull, another blowjob. Of the crime scene shows: The Reeperbahn has become a ballerina. But – that’s his quality – he never succumbs to the danger of putting the blur over the past. Back then there weren’t these megapuffs with the washable floors, there were dive bars and taverns and so-called establishments with plush hearts ready and waiting. But of course the whole thing has always been a tough business. The Healing Mile never existed, not even when it was still in German hands.
In this crime scene the downtrodden ex-lude “Eisen-Lübke” (Michael Thomas) mourns the old days and tries to milk some of the warmth from the new times. He takes aim at the child killer a few times, and although there’s a bang, he never finishes him off. He dances with an old whore to the ancient thriller “On the day Conny Kramer died”, it gets sentimental, it even gets kitschy in the last few meters, and unfortunately the film loses its calm sound. In order to finally get stranded in any scene reminiscent of the former Cologne sausage stalls. A crime scene about love and life for sale that sells short at the very end.
The first, Sunday, 8:15 p.m