Der verlorene Sohn (2009)

Accused of supporting an Islamist terrorist group, German national Rainer Schröder has served a lengthy prison sentence in Israel and is now being deported back to his home country early. In Germany, however, he is also under investigation for supporting radical Islamist groups. His mother, Stefanie Schröder, is delighted and surprised by her son’s return. She tries to forget the troubled past, when her now-deceased husband threw their son out of the house because he constantly talked about jihad. She trusts her long-lost son when he says he has left holy war behind. But Chief Inspector Buchner of the State Criminal Police Office does not believe he has changed and has Rainer put under surveillance, making it even harder for him to reintegrate into society. Even after the public prosecutor’s office drops the case against Rainer, Buchner continues the surveillance. Soon, his mother goes to court to put an end to it. Buchner cannot produce any real evidence, and the family wins the case. But tensions soon arise within the family too, between Rainer and his younger brother Markus. Rainer, who has by now adopted the name Omar and wants to be called that, increasingly tries to impose his radical religious views and rules of conduct on his family. He deeply despises what he sees as the decadent permissiveness of the Western world, which, in his view, indulges in a craving for entertainment and the stress of leisure. When he gets physical with his brother Markus during an argument about this, Markus leaves the house. His mother despairs when she realizes that Rainer’s return has destroyed the family’s last remaining bond. Finally, she throws him out of the house, just as her husband did in the past. As the State Criminal Police Office continues its investigation, Stefanie too is increasingly overcome by doubts about whether Rainer has truly left his past behind, as he claims. She notices her son’s growing aggression, learns of dubious contacts, and discovers a video claiming responsibility for a previous attack on his computer. Another piece of evidence eventually makes it clear that Rainer is not as harmless as people thought and is apparently on the verge of carrying out an attack. Stefanie realizes that Rainer has a suitcase with him that she has never seen before. She follows her son to a subway station, tries to get a policewoman to intervene, and informs Buchner. But the reinforcements that rush to the scene arrive too late. The policewoman draws her weapon but loses her nerve and cannot bring herself to fire. Stefanie wrests the weapon from her, and, certain that Rainer is about to pull a trigger on the suitcase, shoots him.