Ironically, the “Trace of Blood” crime scene turned out to be anemic.
The new crime scene from Cologne relies on an attractive idea that can hardly be spun out in an hour and a half. We don’t want to lose a single word about him. In any case, it weighs more heavily that Ballauf-Schenk’s routine prevails around it. Is it necessary to teach the mother of a murdered drug user that her coldness is not appropriate to the situation? Is it worth saying to the pocket pimp who talks about an “invest”: “She was human first of all”? And if it’s worth it, is it a good, exciting, disturbing crime scene dialogue?
Schenk, Dietmar Bär, in any case, can’t help it, Ballauf, Klaus J. Behrendt, can’t help it either, and the book by Jan Martin Scharf and Arne Nolting, staged by Tini Tüllmann, puts the outspoken dismay in their mouths everywhere. After all, Ballauf concentrates on the essential part: What’s the matter with Natalie, Tinka Fürst, the otherwise sympathetic and tidy forensic technician, who suddenly seems to have something completely different going on?
At first you see two girls, Charlotte Lorenzen as Lara and Greta Bohacek as Kim, fooling around naughtily and tattooing small butterflies on the back of each other’s necks. But they also take heroin and prostitute themselves. Although one scene is dedicated to visualizing a bad trip, even that remains bloodless (in a story where blood plays the title role). Nevertheless, one is curious about the two, but in vain, because “Trace of Blood” leaves it at the very general sketch.
Lara is now dead in the red-brown water. Some airtime is devoted to the decorative image that results. Nothing further emerges from the decorative image, on the other hand, a disadvantage of the decorative and of a narrative that remains on the surface.
One lead leads to the embarrassing pimp, who Robert Stadlober embodies, at least on the visible level, with an appropriately small effort, another leads to a guy played by Josef Hader. This is such a beautiful cast that hope germinates again. Hader in particular makes as much of it as possible, gets into conversation with Nathalie as well and quickly as strangers occasionally do. And like Reinhold Heil’s melancholic string music, which may have been used a little too extensively, it comes from a different sphere.
And the term “performing box” comes from another sphere. The fact that the police know the word, of course, and that it comes off their lips so easily, is strong, but in this crime thriller, which is so well-behaved overall, it seems like a coincidence.
Maybe it’s worth keeping the gift phrase “Watch out, you toilet brush” ready for emergencies. No, actually not.
“Crime scene: trace of blood”, ARD, Sun., 8.15 p.m.