"Im Angesicht des Verbrechens" or "In the Face of Crime" is a German television mini series from 2010, so it is almost a decade old now. It consists of 10 episodes of slightly under 50 minutes, so you can watch the entire thing in about 8 hours if you have the determination to do so. I would not recommend it, however. Maybe 2 sittings of 4 hours seem more appropriate or whatever you deem right. IF you want to watch it, that is. And again, I would not recommend it. This is a work written by Rolf Basedow and he worked with director Dominik Graf on many occasions already. Should be the recipe for a quality outcome right? Well it did not turn out this way. But I am not surprised. I find it baffling how long Graf has been in the industry making films for the small and big screen and how many awards he has received during his long career and yet how incredibly limited his filmmaking ability is. I have seen a lot more from him than this work, but there is never a really high level of creativity to any of his works. Sure, maybe you can blame Basedow here too because a director can only make so much out of a really weak script. It is a bit of everything I suppose. Just one moment I want to mention, namely when we have a scene in one of the later, but not final, episodes when the two protagonists are sitting in a car observing a potential crime scene and then another cop comes to their car and blows their cover. For whatever reason, Graf (and not just in that scene) randomly splits the screen into two or three parts filming the same situation from different perspectives. I have no idea what his motivation behind that was. To show us the angles from which the criminals now realize that there is an observation going on? I don't know. It is more like grasping for straws desperately to find some approach that makes sense. But I don't admittedly. And there are more bizarre camera choices like this one. It is as if Graf is trying so hard to make something different whatsoever that he doesn't even care how he does it and the outcome is pathetic.
Next problem is the cast, well partially. I did like the actor who played the police chief and Zehrfeld is reliable as always. However, Riemelt is just not good enough of an actor to carry such a project on his shoulders. I probably did not see more than three face expressions here from start to finish coming from him. Alina Levshin is normally a much better actress than she is capable of showing us here. Partially her fault, but more the writing I think. She feels like a desperate filler because they had to establish some kind of romantic relationship for the main character. And these moments when they are without clothes, but with booze, in pretty dangerous situations feel atmospheric maybe but empty and not a challenge at all for the actors. And well, the other female protagonist, Marie Bäumer, I always thought was an actress completely void of any talent whatsoever and yes her recent success was because she looked like Romy Schneider, not because she played the part convincingly or anything. Also if you have seen her how she behaves herself as a private person (Beltracchi episode), you know there is nothing real or authentic about this actress. Embarrassing stuff. Anyway, back to this project here. You could basically summarize it that it shows us the ways in whcih Russian organized crime goes up against police in Berlin. Talking about Berlin, I live in this city myself, have done so for a really long time already and I must say that the impacxt and role of Berlin here was shockingly minimal and it could have played anywhere else, which is especially disappointing as there is even one episode where the word "Berlin" is used in the title, so they tried to deliver from that perspective too, but came short. And all between this, there is the character of Riemelt, indirectly stuck between his job as a police officer and his Russian background and affections for Levshin's character. And of course his sister and her love for an influential Russian man. Another ridiculous moment when we find out near the end nobody knew inside the police force about Riemelt's character's family background. There were so many parts that did not make any sense whatsoever. Like the cringeworthy scene when we have Zehrfeld being shot near the end and the words he says at Riemelt. Unreal how Zehrfeld even pulled that off almost. There is no worse way to prepare a big showdown.
And then there is the character of Sokolov. Is he the main antagonist? Maybe. The scene when he flees from the police station is still fairly memorable. But then he is out for pretty much the entire series for whatever reason before they bring him back eventually with a random story lie that he is all of a sudden the protagonist's brother's killer. Oh my. Hardly anything really feels authentic from this project and almost all of it for the sake of it all. The dialogue writing felt especially weak many many times, in a way that characters would not actually speak like that and say these things. If you watch this series, then you will know what I mean pretty quickly. I will spare you further concrete examples. IIt is like a bad dub with weak translation, only that it is the original version. Another moment when this series is struggling story-wise is how all of a sudden Bäumer's character within minutes changes from grieving wife into rock-hard business woman who wants to continue her man's empire all of a sudden and refuses a gift of several million Euros and a villa. Just for the sake of showing us how tough she is? Of course that story line was completely neglected moments later again. I have no idea what they were thinking. It is really the epitome of weak character writing I must say, especially when it comes to the female characters included in here. I already ttalked about the two in the center and well others don't have that much screen time. The little Russian girl is only scared all the time, the other female police colleague is going through a divorce and randomly has sex after a parachute jump from an airplane with her two colleagues. Oh my. All in all, I would say all 10 episodes are basically 2 stars out of 5 and in my opinion with how seriously this series takes itself, this is still quite a bit on the generous side in my opinion. I just don't see anything in Graf and I wonder if he will ever make a movie where he finally manages to wow me. I somehow doubt it. There is also always some cringe to his efforts like how he only included last names in the intro, in terms of the cast as well as him and Basedow. I also watched his other (Romania-based) police-themed movie where he reunited with Zehrfeld "Zielfahnder" and that one was just as embarrassing. The subject had so so much more to offer here, but it is all gimmicky, showy and never really deep or convincing. In my opinion, you should really skip the watch and I am baffled by how well-received this one is here on imdb and also by audiences. It is for the easily entertained. If you still want to check it out, go for episode one, but don't expect it to get any better afterward. Thumbs down. Not recommended.
Next problem is the cast, well partially. I did like the actor who played the police chief and Zehrfeld is reliable as always. However, Riemelt is just not good enough of an actor to carry such a project on his shoulders. I probably did not see more than three face expressions here from start to finish coming from him. Alina Levshin is normally a much better actress than she is capable of showing us here. Partially her fault, but more the writing I think. She feels like a desperate filler because they had to establish some kind of romantic relationship for the main character. And these moments when they are without clothes, but with booze, in pretty dangerous situations feel atmospheric maybe but empty and not a challenge at all for the actors. And well, the other female protagonist, Marie Bäumer, I always thought was an actress completely void of any talent whatsoever and yes her recent success was because she looked like Romy Schneider, not because she played the part convincingly or anything. Also if you have seen her how she behaves herself as a private person (Beltracchi episode), you know there is nothing real or authentic about this actress. Embarrassing stuff. Anyway, back to this project here. You could basically summarize it that it shows us the ways in whcih Russian organized crime goes up against police in Berlin. Talking about Berlin, I live in this city myself, have done so for a really long time already and I must say that the impacxt and role of Berlin here was shockingly minimal and it could have played anywhere else, which is especially disappointing as there is even one episode where the word "Berlin" is used in the title, so they tried to deliver from that perspective too, but came short. And all between this, there is the character of Riemelt, indirectly stuck between his job as a police officer and his Russian background and affections for Levshin's character. And of course his sister and her love for an influential Russian man. Another ridiculous moment when we find out near the end nobody knew inside the police force about Riemelt's character's family background. There were so many parts that did not make any sense whatsoever. Like the cringeworthy scene when we have Zehrfeld being shot near the end and the words he says at Riemelt. Unreal how Zehrfeld even pulled that off almost. There is no worse way to prepare a big showdown.
And then there is the character of Sokolov. Is he the main antagonist? Maybe. The scene when he flees from the police station is still fairly memorable. But then he is out for pretty much the entire series for whatever reason before they bring him back eventually with a random story lie that he is all of a sudden the protagonist's brother's killer. Oh my. Hardly anything really feels authentic from this project and almost all of it for the sake of it all. The dialogue writing felt especially weak many many times, in a way that characters would not actually speak like that and say these things. If you watch this series, then you will know what I mean pretty quickly. I will spare you further concrete examples. IIt is like a bad dub with weak translation, only that it is the original version. Another moment when this series is struggling story-wise is how all of a sudden Bäumer's character within minutes changes from grieving wife into rock-hard business woman who wants to continue her man's empire all of a sudden and refuses a gift of several million Euros and a villa. Just for the sake of showing us how tough she is? Of course that story line was completely neglected moments later again. I have no idea what they were thinking. It is really the epitome of weak character writing I must say, especially when it comes to the female characters included in here. I already ttalked about the two in the center and well others don't have that much screen time. The little Russian girl is only scared all the time, the other female police colleague is going through a divorce and randomly has sex after a parachute jump from an airplane with her two colleagues. Oh my. All in all, I would say all 10 episodes are basically 2 stars out of 5 and in my opinion with how seriously this series takes itself, this is still quite a bit on the generous side in my opinion. I just don't see anything in Graf and I wonder if he will ever make a movie where he finally manages to wow me. I somehow doubt it. There is also always some cringe to his efforts like how he only included last names in the intro, in terms of the cast as well as him and Basedow. I also watched his other (Romania-based) police-themed movie where he reunited with Zehrfeld "Zielfahnder" and that one was just as embarrassing. The subject had so so much more to offer here, but it is all gimmicky, showy and never really deep or convincing. In my opinion, you should really skip the watch and I am baffled by how well-received this one is here on imdb and also by audiences. It is for the easily entertained. If you still want to check it out, go for episode one, but don't expect it to get any better afterward. Thumbs down. Not recommended.