“Police call 110” on ARD: Identifying between half-truths
The foster child Ronny disappears in the middle of the night. The ARD Sunday evening thriller keeps you groping in the fog of truth and lies for a long time.
Marquez (Pablo Grant), Brasch (Claudia Michelsen) and Lemp (Felix Vörtler) investigate where the bicycle was found Photo: Stefan Erhard/MDR
New bike, fishing rod, pocket knife, plus cake, candles and confetti from everyone in the home. Then in the afternoon a drone and money for the piggy bank from his mother, plus yelling and fisticuffs from her boyfriend. It’s Ronny’s birthday. And runs away from his mother’s (Ceci Chuh) guy, grabs his bike and runs away, it’s been sailing all evening. His jacket, his half-broken phone later turn up there in the house.
But nobody saw him anymore. Or wants to have seen him. Or yes.
The truth and the half-truths and the lies are pushed into the MDRpolice call “Ronny” into each other. A ten-year-old foster child, just gone, in the cold, at night, that’s enough reason for the Magdeburg criminal police to get involved. When Commissioner Brasch (Claudia Michelsen) shows up at her mother’s, the first of many rounds in the fog of truth begins. Did she take him to the bus or not, Ronny wanted to go with the new bike after all, did her guy hit him, she doesn’t know, and anyway, after the riot he was away for so long, wherever.
Matthias (Thomas Schubert), the one home educator who always takes the little boys out on his boat to go fishing, hasn’t seen him either, and the fact that Ronny told everyone they were going to try out the new fishing rod together in the evening was just rubbish.
All or nothing or something in between
The teenage son of the director of the home (great age study by Valentin Oppermann) later remembered that he ran into him in the evening, there was blood on his jumper, yes, he still wanted to go to the jetty, and this Matthias always used to have him groped and other.
Two days go by, the camera isn’t included in everything, it can be anything and nothing or something in between. The way Barbara Ott implements Jan Braren’s story, supported by Falko Lachmund’s pictures, which usually hang somewhere in the approximate, pulls the whole atmosphere into the most urgent oppression. Looking back at the past few Sunday night crime thrillers, it seems like a long time since audiences have been left in the dark with so many believably bad scenarios to choose from. And without the strands unraveling, without the figures remaining pale.
Brasch can hardly do otherwise, as controlled and calm as she is. So many suspicions, so many doubts, and then the bike reappears. She stands around by the Elbe, day and night, in the twilight, in the rain, slamming closet doors. But since we’re dealing with Claudia Michelsen here, she never slips into annoying over-acting. Your boss, Lemp, is usually just a bit off the mark, unfortunately the screenplay doesn’t give him much to do.
And with an actor like Felix Vörtler, that really borders on a waste. Especially because of his chemistry with Michelsen. His Lemp is still around, long after Brasch’s investigative partners have disappeared one by one. This episode shows that this constellation is good for Brasch as a figure: she is a solitaire after all.
