“Crime Scene: This time it’s different”
How good is the new Cologne crime thriller?
“Crime scene: This time it’s different”: A lead in the “Peer Schwarz” murder case leads detectives Max Ballauf (Klaus J. Behrendt, left) and Freddy Schenk (Dietmar Bär) to the Kids4Care youth center in Cologne.
© WDR/Bavaria Fiction GmbH/Martin Valentin Menke
In “Tatort: This time it’s different” Ballauf and Schenk have to solve the murder of a celebrity blackmailer. Is it worth turning on?
The Cologne investigators Max Ballauf (Klaus J. Behrendt, 64) and Freddy Schenk (Dietmar Bär, 63) are featured in “Tatort: This time it’s different” (April 28th, 8:15 p.m., the first) is put to a tough test. Love is to blame.
What is “Tatort: This time it’s different” about?
The unemployed Peer Schwarz was run over by a car under a bridge. In his luxuriously furnished apartment, chief inspectors Ballauf and Schenk not only find large amounts of cash, but also documents that point to the systematic blackmail of celebrities. Schwarz found incriminating material in his blackmail victims’ social media pasts. So did he have to die at the hands of one of these prominent figures? A trail leads Ballauf and Schenk to a popular former pop singer: Mariella Rosanelli (Leslie Malton, 65) now runs a youth center for people who have had to experience a lot of bad things in their young lives.
During the investigation, a conflict arises between Ballauf and Schenk. Freddy accuses Max of not really paying attention. That’s true, because his thoughts are constantly with his new love Nicola Koch, the editor of the city magazine “Cologne Alive”. But then it seems as if there is a connection between his private happiness and the current case…
Is it worth tuning in to “Tatort: This time it’s different”?
Yes, yes. Freddy Schenk alias Dietmar Bär and all other colleagues in the Cologne homicide department deliver as usual. This time it’s a little different for Max Ballauf, alias Klaus J. Behrendt, because he was hit so deeply in the heart by Armor’s arrow that he can hardly concentrate on his work anymore. Unfortunately, you can’t really buy it from him. Also because the external and sometimes strange internal dialogues between him and his girlfriend are quite top-heavy. Freddy also jokes at some point: “That almost sounds like a merger.” When Max asks what connects Freddy and his own wife, he answers: “Marriage, Max.”
Apart from this painful excursion into an amour fou, which several other “crime scene” detectives had to go through before Ballauf – and which rarely seemed contrived – the crime thriller is very good. The story is interesting, the danger of “the internet forgets nothing” is realistic and so is the threat of the public overreacting.