Hot Picks
|
|
|
Der Alte - Der Leibwächter
episode 95
West Germany / Austria / Switzerland 1985
produced by Helmut Ringelmann, Horst-Joachim Gehrmann for Neue Münchner Fernsehproduktion/ZDF, ORF, SRG
directed by Dietrich Haugk
starring Siegfried Lowitz, Michael Ande, Jan Hendriks, Wolfgang Zerlett, Stefan Reck, Peter Weiss, Christine Wodetzky, Gerd Baltus, Charles M. Huber, Ron Williams, Katharina De Bruyn, Udo Thomer, Sibylla Meckel, Chun Mei Tan, Hella Birgit Mascus, Ruthild Rieser, Christian Gaul, Heino Ferch
written by Volker Vogeler, created by Helmut Ringelmann, music by Eberhard Schoener, title theme by Peter Thomas
TV-series Der Alte/The Old Fox, Der Alte (Siegfried Lowitz)
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Two youngsters, Edward (Stefan Reck), son of rich parents (Christine
Wodetzky, Gerd Baltus), and Sven (Peter Weiss), dream of leaving their
lives behind to start a new life without any worries somewhere else - but
of course, they lack the money to do so. So they plan to fake their own
kidnapping to make Edward's dad pay them 3 million Deutschmark and then
escape to a country without extradition treaty - and they've already
bought the tickets. There's just one problem, Edward's bodyguard Alf
(Charles M. Huber) - whom they plan to kill to make everything look
believable. Now at first everything goes great as they manage to overpower
Alf and take him to their secret hide-out - but he manages to free
himself, disarm the youngsters ... and now he figures he can actually play
their game, make them his kidnappees and actually collect the money for
himself. And everything goes well, including the handover and releasing
the boys. But when inspector Köster (Siegfried Lowitz) questions them, he
finds it very puzzling why their statements resemble one another to the
letter. The other thing that's puzzling is that Alf doesn't fit the
profile of a kidnapper, and even Edward's parents vouch for him, as does
his brother Paul (Ron Williams) also in their employ. And with the money
in his possession, Alf actually calls Paul and suggests to share the
ransom money and escape to a country without extradition treaty. Paul
refuses, then shoots Alf dead in a case of misunderstood self defense. He
immediately reports this to the police, but when Köster and company
arrive on the scene, they find the ransom money gone, and Köster has
little problem tracking it back to Edward and Sven ... Siegfried
Lowitz, giving another strong performance, is really the best thing about
this episode that suffers from a story that's just a little too
far-fetched, while leaving its more interesting aspects - like the
relationship of the two boys that's only hinted at, or how Sven's sister
(Sibylla Meckel), who spends a considerable time listening in on people,
including Edward and Sven - underexplored. In a way, this feels like an
episode of a series that has just been on for a bit too long and thus run
out of ideas. That said, the series has continued to be produced until at
least 2020, with ever changing personnel though.) Of come
interest here is that this is the first episode featuring Charles M.
Huber, who would re-join the series as a regular (though naturally as
another character) only the following year and stay with Der Alte
for a dozen of years.
|
|
|