"The Protector" in the first: The murderers are already waiting

In a crime film in the first, two bodyguards and a key witness experience deadly dangers between Hanover and Hamburg.

Frankfurt – Crime films about the work of bodyguards offer only a few variables. The audience can expect that bodyguard and protégé embark on an odyssey. Out of necessity, because in minder circles there is almost always a traitor. Sometimes the ward plays a double game. The game is a bit like the story of the hare and the hedgehog. The killers are always there. Or not long in coming.

The author duo Michael Ehnert and Oke Stielow uses this pattern and masters the challenge of filling the space between the mentioned constants in an interesting and captivating way. Her film, directed by Philipp Osthus, has a pertinent subject: the smuggling of chemicals used to make poison gas. Unfortunately not pure fiction.

“The Protector”: A shipowner goes into eternal retirement

The Swiss shipping company Beerenberg is involved in such transactions. Illegal, lucrative – and life-threatening. When the owner Urs Beerenberg (Markus Graf) is staying in Port Said, two armed men break into his hotel room, shoot his guards down and send him across the Styx without a fuss. The manager Fiona Weibel (Marlene Tanczik) would have liked to have dealt with the roughnecks at the same time, but she can hide just long enough for the police sirens to sound outside.

As a consequence of what she experienced, she made herself available to the authorities as a key witness. At least that’s what she says. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg is responsible. A crime scene that is not offered every day. The Egyptian police officers escort Weibel to Hanover. There she is handed over to the BKA people Jan Schäfer (Tobias Oertel) and Marco Lansing (Slavko Popadic).

Crime in the first: protector from youth

Schäfer is given a biography by the authors that has had an impact to the present day. He grew up on a fruit farm with his younger sister Swantje (Paula Conrad Hugenschmidt). Both had a difficult childhood. Swantje became addicted to heroin and disappeared. Schäfer has her searched for and receives a message when a drug-related death is found. The choice of profession could be due to the fact that even as a boy he had to act as Swantje’s protector.

And the ongoing concern for the sister could be something that prevents him from responding appropriately at crucial moments. Colleague Lansing is not always fully focused either, because he has just become a father. And the little one keeps his wife busy, robs her of her sleep and good mood.

Of course, the assassins are already at work. Whatever Schäfer and Lansing do – and they know their job – they can’t shake the captors. It criss-crosses Lower Saxony, from one hiding place to the next, in stolen cars. Tireless, constantly scenting, without protection, because Schäfer and Lansing very soon realize that someone in their own ranks is playing the wrong game. Out of caution, they act on their own from now on. Whether that was the right decision remains to be seen.

“The Protector” in the first: blond, corruptible and evil

The process is now being prepared in Hamburg. The callous Claire Beerenberg, cast a little too close to comics with the platinum blonde and mostly piercing looking Anne Müller, is the victim’s daughter, heiress and at the same time legal representative of her shipping company. She has already blatantly warned Fiona Weibel not to testify against the company.

Her counterpart is the Syrian-German lawyer Rasha (Sabrina Amal), who, strangely enough, unlike the other characters, has not been given a last name in the ARD press material. Generally, children are only addressed by their first names. That tastes slightly unpleasant after disqualification. Role inappropriate as Rasha is an important character in this complex game.

And despite the many well-known elements, it is very exciting, and it also gets the proper drive from the hearty, but not obtrusive music of the composer Maurus Ronner.

Despite the otherwise convincing design, a few nonchalance things have crept in. On the one hand, the threatened witness is housed in a room with uncovered panoramic windows and a direct exit to the outside. It couldn’t be easier for crafty assassins. Another time, Weibel runs completely uncovered across a square that is open on all sides. It’s just a guess, but the curriculum for bodyguards must have a different approach. (Harold Keller)

The ARD series “Ein Hauch von Amerika” also offers great pictures and a strong cast, but cannot consistently convince.