Der Schnüffler (1983)

West Berlin taxi driver Herbert Böckmann gets caught between the rival intelligence services CIA and KGB in divided Berlin in the 1980s and unwillingly becomes a double agent. Böckmann is an honest, apolitical taxi driver who would simply like to live a quiet life and eventually raise sheep in Australia. When he delivers KGB agent Boris Stravinski, lifeless, to the KGB headquarters in East Berlin, a turbulent chase begins involving the KGB, the CIA, and the German police. Only at Professor Prätorius’s psychiatric clinic does Böckmann find help from Anna, an assistant doctor. She tries to do something about his shattered self-confidence and helps him find Boris Stravinski’s real killer. Anna prescribes fitness training for Böckmann to turn him into a real agent, but this fails because of his self-doubt and low self-confidence. As a last resort, she uses a psychological trick: she tells him there is a new drug that boosts self-confidence and gives one the feeling of being invincible when one “sniffs” it. She hands him a bottle of nail polish, and after an initial test Böckmann feels incredibly strong—which Anna’s neighbor and his dog find out firsthand. The placebo effect of the nail polish enables Böckmann—who now calls himself Herbie Melbourne—to endure all the hardships of his new life as an agent, from an impromptu theater performance to fierce gunfights. When a bullet hits the bottle of nail polish, Anna has to explain to him that it was only nail polish and that his apparent superpowers are actually his own. The film ends on a sheep farm in Australia, fulfilling Böckmann’s long-held wish. When he opens a wardrobe in the bedroom there, a corpse falls out. The waiter, who is just bringing two ice-cream sundaes into the room, sees the corpse and also the knife Böckmann is holding. The waiter (“Get the police!”) and Anna are horrified, while Böckmann simply remarks coolly, “Just a corpse.”