The 76th thriller with the private detective from Münster is only average compared to the last few episodes. “Wilsberg: Tastes like murder” is on ZDF today. The TV review.
Frankfurt – A meat producer from Westphalia, whose company is considered one of the largest economic factors in the area: Not only the people in Gelsenkirchen prick up their ears. In the “Wilsberg” episode “Tastes of Murder”, similarities with an entrepreneur who determined the fortunes of Schalke 04 for two decades and caused all sorts of scandals with his main plant in Rheda-Wiedenbrück are purely coincidental.
In fact, the crime figure is largely blameless, as will be shown later; if this designation is even appropriate for a meat manufacturer. However, there are some unpleasant rumors about the conditions in his company. Private detective Wilsberg (Leonard Lansink) is supposed to investigate this slander on behalf of lawyer Tilker (Patricia Meeden), and of course the case takes on a magnitude that goes far beyond routine investigation at the latest after the murder of the “Meat King”.
“Wilsberg: Tastes like murder” today on ZDF: Directed by Philipp Osthus
In recent years, the contributions to the series from Münster have always been at their best when the scripts ensured that the zealous Oberkommissar Overbeck (Roland Jankowsky) used questionable achievements of digitization in his investigations; or when the directors (with two exceptions that date back a long time, in fact all men) unleashed a firework of allusions and film quotes. Measured against this, episode number 76 is a completely ordinary crime thriller: entertaining, also solid in implementation and presentation, but only average in the context of “Wilsberg”.
Directed by Philipp Osthus, who, among other things, shot the first four episodes of the excellent ARD Friday series “Käthe und ich” and most recently the ARD thriller “Der Beschützer” with Tobias Oertel, which is well worth seeing. His Wilsberg debut was the excellent episode Genes Don’t Lie (2022). The film had everything that makes a good “Wilsberg” thriller: a story that is becoming increasingly complex, a reunion with characters from previous episodes, a large ensemble complemented by many young faces, wonderful dialogues and many small surprises. There are some of them in “Taste of Murder” as well; but at a much lower dose.
“Wilsberg: Tastes like murder” today on ZDF: Leaves no lasting memory
The plot is all the more complex. The screenplay by “Wilsberg” regular author Stefan Rogall, who recently contributed two extremely entertaining stories in the Agatha Christie style (“One of Us”, 2021, and “Uninvited Guests”, 2022) has a lot of staff and a correspondingly large number of levels of action to offer, but Overbeck’s gloomy foreboding “Something’s brewing here!” It doesn’t do justice. Of course, as always, it’s fun to watch the ensemble, especially since the inspector and the detective exchange all sorts of pleasantries in their usual cheerful way, but the film doesn’t leave a lasting memory.
“Wilsberg: Tastes like murder”
Broadcast: Saturday, October 1, 2022, ZDF, 8:15 p.m., media library
This may also have something to do with the fact that the background topic remains the same: there is constant talk of the meat industry and meat substitutes, but superficially it is about animosity and ambitions. The most interesting relationship is that between the meat king, Thomas Heitbrink (Michael Schiller), and his daughter Lea (Anna Hausburg): she delivers food for a vegetarian restaurant and doesn’t want anything to do with her father’s empire. The patriarch could not reconcile the fact that she does not eat meat and is also a lesbian with his worldview; nevertheless he intended her as his successor.
“Wilsberg: Tastes like murder” today on ZDF: “Veil of ignorance”
Otherwise, it’s all about relationships in the sense of “vitamin B”, embodied by Chief Inspector Springer (Rita Russek), who flirts with the orphaned post of criminal adviser and gets involved in a clique with that influential city councilor (Stephan Schaad), of all people, who Overbeck is finally presented triumphantly as Heitbrink’s murderer. The chief inspector has the best dialogues anyway, especially since he has been giving interesting lectures regularly for some time thanks to his participation in a philosophical circle.
This time it is about the ideology of egalitarian liberalism described by the political philosopher John Rawls in his book “A Theory of Justice”. The “veil of ignorance” is an important part of this theory of justice as well as of every crime novel. Of course, the discourse between Rawls and his opponents, the utilitarians, is not deepened further because that would go beyond the scope, but the corresponding superficiality is quite typical of this crime thriller. (Tilmann P. Gangloff)
