Marie Brand und der Reiz der Gewalt (2019)

Patrol officer Jan Nowak and his colleague Arndt Krieger are called to a noise complaint in a park late one evening. The routine call unexpectedly escalates, and Chief Inspector Nowak dies from a gunshot wound. Still in shock, Krieger cannot remember which of the eight to fifteen young men causing trouble might have fired the shot, especially as it was dark. He is certain they did not provoke the group any further. After reviewing footage from the park’s security cameras, Detective Marie Brand and her colleague Jürgen Simmel identify Oliver Pesko, a former convict known for his violent tendencies. Brand and Simmel question Pesko, who denies all the accusations. He says he ran off as soon as the two police officers arrived so he would not get dragged into anything. He cannot remember hearing a shot. During their investigation, the detectives discover that Krieger’s son Dennis was apparently among the troublemakers in the park. When they try to question him, he goes into hiding. Marie Brand now understands why police officer Krieger claims to have gaps in his memory: he wants to protect his son. Brand and Simmel search for Dennis and also question his grandfather, Gregor Hoffmann. Hoffmann is a retired judge and openly admits that he thinks little of his son-in-law Arndt, whom he considers a coward. Instead of taking firm action, he would just “duck away.” The tensions within the Krieger family are therefore clear to the detectives. Police officer Arndt Krieger is under twofold pressure: he wants to keep his son Dennis out of the investigation at all costs. His colleagues now suspect him of being partly responsible for Nowak’s death, since they believe his son is the perpetrator. They make their suspicions felt immediately, and Simmel thinks he has to step in to protect Krieger. In the process, Arndt tells him that Gregor Hoffmann has been turning Dennis against his father for quite some time. Hoffmann also runs a kind of paramilitary training group, where he trains violence-prone young people, including Oliver Pesko. “Law and order” mean something different to Hoffmann than they do to Arndt Krieger, and Hoffmann has repeatedly made that clear to him. Meanwhile, Dennis seeks help from Oliver Pesko, who is afraid of the police and does not want to hide him. Instead, he finds Dennis a driver who is supposedly going to get him out of the city and to safety. In fact, the driver secretly slips the murder weapon to Dennis, drops him off in the middle of the city, and gives the police an anonymous tip to that effect. When Dennis realizes he has been betrayed and has no way out, he decides to take the gun to the police himself. In the parking lot right outside the police building, he runs into Marie Brand and tries to hand her the pistol. An officer misreads the situation and fires, hitting a female colleague who is standing nearby. Dennis flees in fear, but still has the gun with him. Brand and Simmel pursue him and also have Dennis’s girlfriend Melissa put under surveillance. Brand believes the key to solving the case lies with Gregor Hoffmann, who was responsible for inciting the young people and supplying them with weapons. However, she cannot prove this and hopes for a confession from Pesko. Pesko is arrested after Dennis, once caught, states unequivocally that Pesko shot Nowak.