 |
||||
|
Antikörper [2005] Though it works hard to make serial murderer Gabriel Engel [André Hennicke], a repulsive creep rather than a charismatic superfiend ['what did you expect? Hannibal Lecter?'], this is still a clever variation on The Silence of the Lambs rather than an entirely different take on the bond between a troubled policeman and a just-captured child-killer. It opens with Engel, who molests and murders small boys then paints pictures with their blood, apprehended after a lengthy crime spree, then focuses on Michael Martens [Wotan Wilke Möhring], a part-time cop in a rural area, who has stirred up local ill-feeling by insisting on a general DNA test to rule out everyone in town as a suspect in the killing of a little girl who doesn't quite fit the profile of Engel's victims. Martens travels to the big city, consulting with cynical veteran cop Seiler [Heinz Hoenig], to interrogate Engel, who has admitted to all the other murders but is being cagey about the girl – then claims not to have killed her, but to know who did. The plot is twisted enough, with Se7en-like manipulation
of the authorities by the villain to claim some added victims by proxy,
but its strongest suit is the in-depth characterisation of the tormented
Martens, a Catholic who is forced to confront his inner darkness by
the murder case and whose tendency to look too hard for evil brings
him in conflict with his whole community [and family]. First published in this form here. Visit Kim's Official Website at www.johnnyalucard.com
|
||||