Strähl is losing the plot. A bad-tempered but mush-hearted bully patrolling the hot district around Zurich's Langestrasse, our man gets tangled up in a drug-and-love story where right and wrong get sort of mixed up. So does Strähl whose mammoth intake of medication doesn't help. Here's a doomed man on a doomed mission, simultaneously trying to save his job and get square with the Albanian drug mafia, who finds himself bribing a dope-pushing witness with a pounder worth of heroin... Zurich as canvas for a gritty urban detective story? Well, not quite. Strähl is a thoroughly funny and not least endearing take on your archetypical bad cop plot. Roeland Wiesnekker as Strähl is a monument of a self-pitying, hopeless and sympathetic flatfooter. Johanna Bantzer has just the right edge for the sleazy, street-wise Carol. Manuel Löwensberg as shifty junkie René keeps up with his colleagues. Great side characters (cops). Nice pace throughout. Crafty image. A few flaws in the plot, but who minds, really? Hilariously crude dialogues, though I seriously doubt any translation will do justice to the mangy talk that accounts for a great deal of the fun. Even the German subtitling I got wasn't any where near the real thing. Sound proof that at least a few Swiss do have humour. Great value.
Review of Strähl
