2023-10-10 06:04:00
Lukas Sturm (book) and director Sabine Derflinger then transform the macabre starting point into a crime thriller in which the “brutal” pig fattening business, animal protection activism and all sorts of ideological differences spin into a web that is not always exciting.
“Is this still a farm?” Krassnitzer asks right at the beginning, as we get closer to the processes on the high-tech pig farm somewhere in the outskirts of Vienna following the grisly body of the company’s co-owner Max Winkler (Norbert Friedrich Prammer) is found. A total of 1,200 animals are kept there. Everything according to the regulations, some say, “1,200 poor pigs” others, such as the resolute animal protection pioneer Maria Vogler, convincingly embodied by Claudia Martini.
Broadcast on Sunday
The forensic doctor (Günter Franzmeier), who is equally experienced in acting, is quickly able to rule out the pigs as the perpetrators. The Austro investigators, who are also calibrated, come to a new case that is by no means as simple as the local police chief imagines. The “Peasant Death” broadcast next Sunday (October 15th) at 8:15 p.m. on ORF 2 is now Krassnitzer’s 56th and Neuhauser’s 32nd “Tatort” mission.
The rural police immediately have suspicions once morest the Romanian farm workers, including the quick-tempered Darius (Marko Kerezovic). The exchange with the schnapps-drinking, somewhat melancholic-looking farm manager Sepp Obermaier, convincingly played by Martin Leutgeb, and with the wife and co-owner of the farm, Irene Winkler (Doris Hindinger), turn out to be not very helpful.
Little by little it becomes clear that the “power couple” who significantly expanded the business were “crossed.” As is often the case in rural film family ties, the old farmer, played by Haymon Maria Buttinger, also has his own opinion on the processes in the technological company, which is also in the crosshairs of animal protection activists.
Some twists
This is where the new, globalized world of agriculture around EU subsidies and their potential misuse by a sinister agricultural corporation, lofty disappointed business ideas, as well as more traditional ideas regarding rural economics collide with vegetarian computer hackers and sausage roll-eating police officers. All of this brings with it a few scenes with humor, for example when the investigative duo in rustic garb helps out collecting orchards, or police officer Meret Scham (Christina Scherrer) arrests an opaque young activist in a pig mask (Julia Wozek) at Stephansplatz in an equally rustic way .
Overall, however, the tension in the contemporary crime thriller struggles with a few rather average, rather stereotypical acting performances. Nevertheless, the makers manage to come up with a few very touching twists, especially towards the end, which might give Sunday crime thriller consumers a lot to take with them to bed.
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