Vorstadtkrokodile 3 (2011)

The Crocodiles celebrate Hannes’s 13th birthday. Maria would like to spend it alone with her boyfriend, but the rest of the gang members thwart her plan and give Hannes a gift certificate for a go-kart track. Olli goes on vacation with his girlfriend, while Kai heads to a basketball camp. The remaining Crocodiles decide to go go-karting and use the gift certificate. Since the track is closed, they simply borrow the karts and hold a race in a parking garage. A serious accident follows: Hannes and Frank collide, and Frank is badly injured. It becomes clear that he urgently needs a donor liver, or at least a partial liver donation. Frank’s brother Dennis is the only possible donor, since their father is an alcoholic. But Dennis is still in prison—the one the Crocodiles had sent him to. Since he has already made several escape attempts, the prison director refuses to let him out under any circumstances. So the Crocodiles come up with a plan to get Dennis out of prison themselves. They set up a new headquarters in a vacant office tower not far from the prison (their previous one was destroyed in an explosion at the end of the second film), from whose roof they can keep a close eye on the prison. The plan is to smuggle one of the Crocodiles into the prison so he can free himself and Dennis using a sort of cable car. Peter applies for a job with an air-conditioning technician who is currently inspecting and repairing the prison’s ventilation system and looking for an assistant. The technician also stutters and takes a liking to Peter, so Peter gets the job. Meanwhile, Maria tries to get more information about the prison from a young guard named Max, pretending she wants to write an article about it for the school newspaper. Later, Peter smuggles Hannes into the prison so he can cut through a window grille in the library with an angle grinder. To cover up the noise, Peter and Jenny throw a loud disco party with dancing on a stack of pallets outside the prison. In the meantime, Kevin is intercepted in town while out on leave and brought into the plan, which he is supposed to pass on to Dennis. He is not very enthusiastic, though, since he could be released soon for good behavior. That night, Hannes is still hiding in the ventilation shaft until Kevin brings Dennis from his cell to the library. To do so, Kevin had earlier taken an impression of the cell key from Max; one of the inmates (played by Christian Durstewitz, who contributed the film’s theme music) then made a copy and secretly handed it to Kevin. But Max suddenly decides to work late that evening, so Maria, unable to think of anything else, invites him to the cinema. Hannes is not at all pleased. Hannes now shoots a rope over the prison wall. On the roof of a building opposite, Peter and Jenny tie a cable to it, which Hannes pulls into the prison so he can swing himself—and then Dennis—over the wall and out of the prison. However, the transmission mast securing the cable on the opposite building’s roof proves unstable and buckles, leaving the cable sagging. Hannes fails to reach his destination and, after swinging out, is left hanging over the prison yard. The plan is exposed. The next day, Hannes’s mother has to collect him from prison after he is locked up. The Crocodiles now think up a new plan, involving Hannes’s mother, who initially wants to discuss the problem with RTL, but ends up despairing while on hold with its hotline. Meanwhile, Olli and Kai return from their trips. During the first attempt, Hannes overheard a conversation in the ventilation duct between Dennis and inmates in the kitchen, in which Dennis told them about his kiwi allergy. Frank confirms this to the Crocodiles when they visit him in the hospital. So the Crocodiles get Horst Lichter into the prison, where he is to cook as a celebrity chef (Maria learned during her tour with Max that celebrity chefs often visit) with Jorgo as his new assistant. They serve a soup with a large helping of kiwi in it. Dennis has an allergic reaction, and Hannes’s mother, acting as an emergency doctor, immediately takes him to the hospital in a van converted into an ambulance. Before that, Maria and Hannes are alone, and Maria explains why she fell in love with him. They kiss afterward. During the drive, they try to stop the allergic reaction, but it proves difficult because Hannes and his mother know very few medical terms and cannot immediately find the syringe containing the antihistamine. The prison director is also riding in the front of the van to the hospital because he does not trust the emergency doctor or Jenny, who is driving the van disguised as a paramedic; Jenny’s disguise is exposed at the end. At the hospital, Dennis is put into a wheelchair, but the prison director mistakenly runs after Kai, who is wearing a prison-service sweater. Frank finally receives a partial liver donation, and his recovery is celebrated. At the end, the Crocodiles sit together and conclude that they are now too old for any more children’s-gang adventures. But no one can take away their memories of the adventures they have shared or their friendship.