A nice HR crime scene with Ulrich Tukur as Murot
You have to like that or plan something else for Sunday evening. “Murot and the Law of Karma” is more of a small art film than a TV thriller, but anyone who really wants to do something different now will miss the actor Sascha Nathan as ventriloquist Bernd. The ventriloquist is a windy guy, not a big one, but a concise role. He also sells weapons, which his doll then offers. Not bad, a puppet that deals illegally in weapons, and how would law and order handle that? If law and order wanted to take action in this scene of the crime, but somewhere that takes it easy with the conventional rules?
There are enough cute ideas and curious characters in this HR production to remain casual in the criminalistic center, although the criminalistic center still exists. There are two thieves and blackmailers, Anna Unterberger and Marina Mitterhofer, who have an extraordinary criminal energy, but the sympathies of the script and direction. One also has the impression that they are not excessive. There are two veritable villains, Philipp Hochmair, who is really bad (and completely without measure), but with a clean slate, and Thomas Schmauser as a man for the rough, but who first has to grow into this role. First, an equally criminal couple puts him in a boxing bag and punches and punches him. Then he buys a gun from Bernd the ventriloquist’s doll.
It’s a crime scene with a crime story and dead people. The criminal plot begins with a murder in the hotel, the same hotel where Murot, Ulrich Tukur, gives a lecture on fighting crime at the beginning. He always preaches caution and attention, says Murot imploringly, only to then have a likeable young woman, Anna Unterberger, pour Ko-drops into the red wine in a most delightful Tukur restaurant scene. The woman is highly versatile and criminally active, but not exactly of the rogue kind. There is an unexpected connection to Murot’s distant past life, in which he must have spent a serene summer with a girlfriend in Greece. It sounds crazy, but the film material, which now enchantingly fills the opening credits, was found by the makers on YouTube, a Dutch couple had staged themselves retro and were then also available for the photos in the film. There are a thousand ways to be discovered!
It’s quite possible that Murot made a terrible mistake back then, and that’s probably what the title refers to. You become even sadder with Murot than you were before.
The inspector with an ex-private life, the man who suddenly has to think that he is just meeting the daughter whose existence he did not know: these are classic crime scene and comedy elements, but director Matthias X. Oberg, who put the screenplay together with Lars Hubrich, and his excellent cinematographer Max Preiss prefer to shoot a melancholy and nimble story that steers clear of genre conventions altogether. Ulrich Tukur is perfect for this, while it becomes more and more colorful and strange around him, he withdraws more and more into himself. That’s also a matter of taste, but if you prefer the clown, who certainly doesn’t laugh and remains a stranger in the circus and in the world, this is the place for you.
“Murot and the Law of Karma”, ARD, Sun., 8.15 p.m.
