Schweinskopf al dente (2016)

Provincial police officer Franz Eberhofer has relationship problems to deal with in addition to crime. During a talk with his girlfriend, Susi tells him that she will soon be moving to Italy to be with her lover, Luca. After his grandmother urges him to fight for Susi, he does talk to her, but—as usual—he lacks any diplomatic finesse and cannot change her mind. She leaves. Eberhofer’s father and grandmother therefore plan an expedition south to bring back their future daughter-in-law. At the same time, however, Eberhofer’s boss, Moratschek, orders him to be on hand as his bodyguard after finding a severed pig’s head in his bed. Moratschek is convinced he is on the escaped psychopath Dr. Küstner’s hit list. He panics, even moves in with Eberhofer, and, to Eberhofer’s dismay, bonds with his pot-smoking, Beatles-loving father. Eberhofer can’t expect any help with the case from his colleagues in Landshut: when he calls in the forensic team, the pig’s head has disappeared, so they think Moratschek’s accusations are delusions. The officers also falsely claim that Küstner has gone into hiding in Portugal. Küstner is hiding in the woods and murders a mushroom hunter who gets in his way. Eberhofer calls his old friend Rudi Birkenberger to ask for help. When Rudi hears that the psychopath Küstner has escaped, he gets a little nervous: at the time, he had accompanied the prisoner transport with Eberhofer, and Küstner had threatened to take revenge on him too, just as he had on Moratschek. Rudi suggests sending Moratschek outside as “bait,” but the idea is not well received. Meanwhile, Küstner waits patiently in a motorhome for the right moment. Eberhofer is never far away, though. That changes when he has to take his father and Moratschek to hospital with acute alcohol poisoning, and they have to stay there for a while. Küstner takes advantage of this and blends in with the hospital staff, but he can’t accomplish anything. Eberhofer has meanwhile figured out that Küstner was behind the supposed alcohol poisoning, because the bottles of red wine the two men drank from contained poison. After being released from hospital, Moratschek continues to shelter at the Eberhofers’ house. When Rudi discovers that Küstner is driving a stolen motorhome, but the Landshut police ignore his request to put out an alert, he comes up with a new plan. In a new phone call, Rudi pretends that he has been kidnapped in a motorhome. To describe his kidnapper, he gives Küstner’s height and appearance. Barschl immediately deploys his entire team to find the motorhome. At a roadblock, Küstner realizes the police are after him and promptly sets the motorhome on fire. Before doing so, he had put the mushroom hunter’s corpse behind the wheel, so the Landshut police assume they have “caught” Küstner. Eberhofer has his doubts, though, since it is hard to identify a charred body. While they wait to find out for sure, Eberhofer travels to Italy with Moratschek, his father, and his grandmother to bring Susi back. Without Eberhofer knowing, his friends Flötzinger and Simmerl follow them there too, and everyone has a lively party in Italy. Susi is not especially surprised at first when Franz suddenly appears in front of her. But when Luca starts insulting him, she takes Franz’s side, and the two make up. Rudi informs Eberhofer that the dead man in the motorhome was not Küstner and that Moratschek is still in danger. Meanwhile, Küstner makes advances toward Moratschek’s wife. He persuades her to call her husband and ask him to come home. The plan works, and Moratschek walks straight into Küstner’s trap. Bound with cable ties in his own house, Moratschek has to watch as Küstner gloats over his success. Eberhofer drives back to Germany in Flötzinger’s car, where Rudi is already waiting outside the Moratscheks’ house. They intercept Moratschek’s wife while she is withdrawing money and let her in on their plan. She is to order a pizza, so Eberhofer can intercept the delivery driver and Rudi can spike the food with knockout drops. But Küstner surprises the two of them in their car and plays Russian roulette with them. Just in time, Rudi manages to get Küstner to eat a piece of pizza laced with knockout drops, incapacitating him. After handing Küstner over to their Landshut colleagues and taking a few embarrassing photos of him first, Eberhofer drives back to Italy. When Susi hears that her Franz saved his boss’s life, she is deeply impressed and sure that Franz really is the right man for her after all.