Kaiserschmarrndrama (2021)

Franz Eberhofer, a rural police officer from Niederkaltenkirchen in Lower Bavaria, investigates first one murder and then a second, in which female joggers are found bludgeoned to death in the woods. The first victim, Mona, had offered strip shows online, and some of Eberhofer’s acquaintances were among her clients, making the investigation somewhat delicate. His fellow investigator and friend Rudi Birkenberger is in hospital after a serious car accident—which he caused by grabbing the steering wheel while Franz was driving—and terrorizes the staff there. Although the doctor says his legs have recovered, Rudi has himself wheeled around in a wheelchair and is put up at Franz’s farm. Franz has to share his old childhood bedroom with Susi again and look after Rudi as well. Meanwhile, Franz’s grandmother is having a semi-detached house built beside her farm for her two grandsons and their families. Franz is not very pleased, and his father is even less so. Franz only finds out about it after returning to the farm from a year in Spain, and protests against the “bourgeois gentrification” in various ways, thereby delaying construction. The family dog, Ludwig, is also visibly declining, but Franz refuses to accept the veterinarian’s assessment that his time is up at the age of 14. Papa briefly gets Ludwig back on his feet with meat patties laced with cannabis, but then the dog dies alone at one of his favorite spots. Franz finds him dead, and the family buries him afterward. As it turns out, Mona was confronted about her lifestyle by her brother’s deeply religious wife, and was then beaten to death in the heat of the moment. Her brother is a Protestant pastor. The second murder was a “copycat killing” of his own wife, committed by one of Mona’s clients, who had been questioned as a witness. After Rudi helps himself to the meat patties meant for Ludwig, his hyper, silly mood confuses the second murderer before he can be apprehended. At the end of the film, the topping-out ceremony for the new house is held at the farm. During the celebration, a drunk Leopold gets into an argument with his brother Franz and damages the unfinished structure with a wheel loader. While the celebration is still underway, Leopold’s wife, Panida, goes into labor with their second child. Franz drives her to the hospital with Susi. There, the two brothers reconcile, and Leopold announces that his son is to be named Franz.