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Run-down ex-cop & ex-private eye Brenner (Josef Hader) has taken a job as
co-driver for the Kreuzretter-ambulance services, which seems attractive
to him since the demands of the job are rather low & nothing much is
happening that needs his involvement, with the possible exception of a quarrel
over fundings with the competing ambulance company Rettungsbund, who
have secured themselves the financial aid of construction-businessman Watzek
(Gerhard Ernst) - much to the dismay of Kreuzretter's boss Junior
(Michael Schönborn), who wants Brenner to investigate ...
But the relative silence is soon disrupted when Irmi (Jutta Unterlercher), a
nurse with the Kreuzretter, & Stenzl (Andreas Sobik), one of the company's
members of the board, are shot when making love ... & by Gross (Bernd
Michael Lade), a driver of the Kreuzretter no less (which only the audience
knows, though).
Despite his police past, brenner tries to stay out of it all (even though he
immediately guesses the killer#), but his colleague & driver Berti (Simon
Schwarz) soon gets obsessed with detective work & gathers some evidence
that would point to Gross ... until Gross turns up dead, too (murdered of
course).
The police (here embodied by Gottried Breitfuss & Georg Veitl) are quick
to jump to conclusions of course & arrest Lanz (Reiner Simonischek), whose
daughter Angelika (Nina Proll) had a sexual relationship with Gross, & so
before long, Brenner finds Angelika on his doorstep, begging him to
investigate. He accepts, but not so much for the blowjob she promises him but
to impress Klara (Barbara Rudnik), his highschool love he just recently met
again & whom he, the run-down ambulance driver, wants to impress.
Of course his first way leads him right to the heart of the Rettungsbund,
where he tries gathering evidence by listening in on a conversatin of
Rettungsbund's boss Palina (Bernd Jeschek) & businessman Watzek ... but
unfortunately he is found out, & he gets a severe beating plus an unhealthy
alcohol injection ...
This not only leads to a terrible hangover, he also falls from grace with
his boss Junior, but his cuts, bruises & assorted injuries strangely turn
on Klara, with whom he soon has sex, & who agrees to help hjim with his
investigations, too.
Brenner soon follows up a different lead, concerning the involvement of dead
Irmi with her killer, the now also dead Gross, with Junior & with a certain
ambulance driver called Jäger (Karl Markovics), whom he at first finds totally
gone due to a brain injury ... but when Brenner gathers evidence of his
romantic involvement with Irmi right to her dead (!), he figures his
out-of-mind state is just camouflage ... & really, Jäger has knowledge
about a big inheritance scheme he, Junior & Gross have dreamt up to get
sufficient funding for the Kreuzretter - but when Jäger learned the scheme
involved murder he wanted out ... & got out the hard way, when Gross placed
a screwdriver right in his brain. Only his pretending to be far more injured
than he actually was has actually saved his life so far ...
But soon Junior has found out about Jäger faking his own condition too,
& he is not likely to stop at anything to get rid of this dangerous
witness, & soon has him placed neatly in the back of a defective ambulance
which emits its exhaust gasses into the back ...
It all culminates in a ambulance-carchase with Junior (Jäger in the back)
in the lead, followed by an ambulance carrying Brenner & Klara, & one
driven by Berti, & soon Brenner & Klara end in the back of Junior's
poisonous ambulance with Jäger.
Only in the very last minute can Berti save the day when he shoots Junior.
'At the conclusion, Brenner doesn't get the girl (Klara that is), but it is
strongly hinted at he at least gets the promised blowjob from Angelika ...
Very well-done genre-film that succeeds not so much because of its noir-ish
plot - which, while well-written, is not exactly original - but due to its
ironic take on the subject matter that - despite the involvement of many
popular Austiran comedians (most important lead actor & co-scripter Josef
Hader) - never turns into mindless crime comedy or genre parody, paired
with a competent direction & good performances from all of the cast.
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