Mord in bester Familie (2011)

Reinhard Lorenz is the proud owner of a sawmill. For his 80th birthday, he has also invited his daughter Katrin, who left her hometown twenty years ago. Katrin is not his only daughter: there is also her slightly older sister, Manuela, who became pregnant by Katrin’s fiancé, Christian Bergmann, back then. That was also why Katrin left home and went to America. The happiness of Katrin and Christian did not last long, however. Reinhard Lorenz drove Christian away, accusing him of embezzling half a million in company funds. Christian always denied it. Manuela is reserved toward her sister because she believes Katrin has returned only to claim the share of the inheritance she would receive after their father’s death. During his birthday speech, Reinhard Lorenz suffers a bout of weakness. Katrin wants to spend her first night back home in the old hunting lodge she loved, but becomes the victim of a murder attempt, which she miraculously survives with only minor injuries. She tells the local police officer, Chief Inspector Martin Westphal, whom she has known since childhood, that someone pushed her while she was sitting on a cliff, lost in thought. At first Katrin wants to leave, but then decides to stay until she finds out who tried to kill her. In a conversation with Manuela’s son Daniel, Katrin learns that his father had approached him, but he ran away because his mother cannot bear even to hear him say his father’s name. He asks Katrin to help them reconcile. When she meets Christian, he tells her that he would like to tell his son his side of the story someday, too. Then Daniel could make up his own mind. Reinhard Lorenz demands that Christian Bergmann leave “his” town immediately. Shortly afterward, Daniel visits his father in his hotel room to get answers. At the same time, Martin Westphal tries to convince Katrin that Christian was probably the one who pushed her off the cliff. With the help of his son and Katrin, Christian Bergmann obtains documents that could prove he never committed the embezzlement he was accused of. The next day, however, Bergmann is found dead on a riverbank. He has been shot with an old Wehrmacht firearm. Reinhard Lorenz summons Jens Mattern, Manuela’s partner and something of a foster son to him, who has worked at the company for nearly thirty years. Lorenz bluntly tells Mattern that he was the one who forged the documents ten years earlier because Bergmann stood in his way as he worked his way up. Although Lorenz had not particularly liked Christian, he would never have tolerated anyone branding him a fraud and ruining him. Mattern is a scoundrel who turned Lorenz into the murderer of an innocent man: Lorenz had shot Christian to protect his family. As he was dying, Christian had continued to insist that he was innocent and had given Lorenz a flash drive proving who was to blame. Even now, Mattern shows his full depravity, insisting that Lorenz sign the sawmill over to him if he does not want to lose his grandson’s love. Shortly afterward, when Lorenz confesses to Daniel what he has done, Daniel runs off, overwhelmed, gets on his moped, and speeds away, pursued by Jens Mattern. At the rocky outcrop from which Jens had already pushed Katrin, he confronts the boy and aims his gun at him. Reinhard Lorenz suddenly appears and prevents him from firing. Mattern shoots Lorenz, fatally wounding him. By then, Manuela, Katrin, and Matthias Westphal have also arrived. Matthias shoots Mattern, incapacitating him, and then arrests him.