After 13 years, the ARD series ends with Erol Sander as the Turkish commissioner. Goodbye with an exciting thriller from Athens.
Because German production companies have not wanted to shoot in Turkey for some time for obvious reasons, Mehmet Özakin (Erol Sander) is investigating for the second time in a row abroad for ARD; his first away game took him to Asia in 2018. “Use him Thailand” was a 180-minute thriller in which the Istanbul inspector took on two gangster gangs.
“Decision in Athens” (8:15 pm, ARD) is even better: Özakin has just received the divorce papers of his future ex-wife when she calls an emergency number. Sevim (Idil Üner) is staying in Athens with her new boyfriend and his daughter. Teenager Clara (Alexandra Kolaiti) has disappeared without a trace while shopping; and Steffen, the girl’s father, an investigative journalist, doesn’t respond to Sevim’s calls.
Erol Sander as Commissioner Mehmet Özakin in “Istanbul Murder Commission: Decision in Athens” (ARD)
While the local police consider all of this to be harmless, it doesn’t take Özakin long to find out that Clara has been kidnapped. Actually, the gangsters are after Steffen (Michael Rotschopf). The only clue for his research is a road map on which several beaches are marked. The commissioner suspects that the journalist was on to something big. Eventually he finds Sevim’s friend seriously injured in a hospital. He suffers from partial amnesia, but still knows that it is about documents that incriminate the powerful building contractor Tsanidis (Yorgos Glastras).
In the middle third of “Istanbul Murder Commission: Decision in Athens” there is a brief tension breakdown, but the final act is all the more gripping. This is ensured above all by the music interspersed with Greek elements: composer Alex Komlew recently raised the “Sarah Kohr” episode “Schutzbefohlen” to a higher thriller level. The image design (Aljoscha Hennig) of the ARD thriller is on a similar level. Director Ismail Şahin, who was also involved in a small role in the first “Murder Commission Istanbul” film in 2008 (“The Dead in the Cistern”), drew attention to himself in 2014 with his unusual directorial debut “Not again Rudi”.
| Rolle | Darsteller: in |
| Mehmet Özakin | Erol Sander |
| Sevim Özakin | Idil Üner |
| Steffen | Michael Rotschopf |
| Hector | Yiannis Niarros |
| Deimos Tzanidis | Yorgos Glastras |
| Sofia Boutaris t | Antigoni Fryda |
| Zagorakis | Aris Troupakis |
| Samaras | Giannis Eglezos |
| Clara | Alexandra Kolaiti |
“Istanbul Murder Commission: Decision in Athens” (ARD): Multi-faceted interplay
The film, narrated very quickly with the help of the editing (Peter Kirschbaum) in between, turned out so good that even the usual weaknesses of German foreign productions can be ignored: Apart from the main characters, all speaking roles in “Murder Commission Istanbul: Decision in Athens” are with locals has been occupied, and their dubbing is simply no cinema format.
After all, the most important male contributors are interesting types: Yorgos Glastras is appropriately Janus-headed as a builder from a humble background, who has a big heart for the little people, but not only in the figurative sense goes over corpses to get his plans through. As Özakin’s helper, Yiannis Niarros is responsible for the occasional cheerful moments and at the end initiates the beginning of a Greek-Turkish friendship; the resentment between the two countries is just as much a topic of the script as the consequences of the financial crisis, which are still very present in Greece.
ARD thriller: “Istanbul Murder Commission: Decision in Athens” – a multifaceted interplay
In any case, the authors Stefan Kuhlmann and Claus Stirzenbecher have succeeded in creating a multi-faceted interplay with “Istanbul Murder Commission: Decision in Athens”, and not only because they embed the kidnapping in a larger political context. The ARD film is also emotionally captivating: of all people, Steffen has to entrust the life of his daughter to his girlfriend’s total stranger; and of course Özakin still loves his wife.
On the other hand, short inserts with Clara remind us that there is more than just one big story at stake. Tension-increasing measures, such as the girl’s escape, mean that the film is constantly captivating, except for the sag in the middle third.
To the broadcast
“Istanbul Murder Commission: Decision in Athens”, May 29, ARD, 8:15 pm.
Özakin’s 23rd case is a fitting conclusion to the series “Murder Commission Istanbul” (ARD)
The music remains high-quality anyway, the agile camera is in motion a lot, but always in an elegant way, and the drone recordings are not a gimmick, they are used sensibly. A small work of art is a scene in which a TV interview gives Steffen’s memory a boost and his perception of the monitor changes into a very similar image when he witnessed a murder through a window. In contrast to Degeto’s other foreign productions, “Decision in Athens” is never suspected of being tourism television by other means, and so Özakin’s 23rd case is a worthy conclusion to the series. The Degeto announced in 2019 that it would be discontinued, but for once not for reasons of quotas: You can’t have “Murder Commission Istanbul” play permanently abroad. (Tilmann P. Gangloff)
