This is a very good German crime story, with a complex but not tangled plot, in the sense that it is not difficult to follow and does not contain mistakes. It goes always fast, and there is never a slack moment. The director Wolfgang Becker made a number of episodes of the series "Der Kommissar" and "Derrick" and has always shown his ability in placing the camera, choosing the angle, and directing the actors. I may also say that his TV works are cinema, especially if we think of the usual TV-direction: flat, not inventive, lazy. But German TV could boast in the sixties and seventies other top-directors (Wolfgang Staudte, Helmut Käutner,...). The actors are all good, especially the two main characters and the mediator between Babeck and them. But we owe much also to the writer Herbert Reinecker, whose brain was a storehouse of plots and characters (he also wrote the two above mentioned series). If most of the film is a very good crime-story, but rather impersonal, I recognized the genius of this man at the end, where we can draw a very interesting teaching or message.
*** SPOILERS!*** One thing (but this is repeated throughout the movie) is that who wants to do business with great criminals, in the illusion of catching a golden opportunity, loses his life. Then: criminals cooperate to reach the same aim, but they just use each other, and faithfulness turns suddenly into hate and murder if only it becomes necessary. Among them there is no friendship or solidarity, but only complicity and interest. If the determination of the son of the knife-grinder to find his father's murderer is comprehensible, his stubbornness of having him pay for it, using blackmail and deceit, is something else. To deliver the culprit to justice is right in itself, but there is a border of common sense not to be crossed. If this brings about high risks, further evil and other murders, it is better to give up and settle for finding the truth. To set oneself up as a judge and a executioner, like God at the end of our lives, is wrong. In fact, when the young man is leaving the villa, the whole matter has left a nasty taste in his mouth. For all the time he has looked like a hero without fear or blame, but at the end he overdoes it, and afterwards he is taken by doubts and maybe remorse. Reinecker was great also because, without ever hiding the evil, he could draw from it profound and positive moral teachings. Believe me, it is a pity to forget such works of the past, because they let those of today blush.
*** SPOILERS!*** One thing (but this is repeated throughout the movie) is that who wants to do business with great criminals, in the illusion of catching a golden opportunity, loses his life. Then: criminals cooperate to reach the same aim, but they just use each other, and faithfulness turns suddenly into hate and murder if only it becomes necessary. Among them there is no friendship or solidarity, but only complicity and interest. If the determination of the son of the knife-grinder to find his father's murderer is comprehensible, his stubbornness of having him pay for it, using blackmail and deceit, is something else. To deliver the culprit to justice is right in itself, but there is a border of common sense not to be crossed. If this brings about high risks, further evil and other murders, it is better to give up and settle for finding the truth. To set oneself up as a judge and a executioner, like God at the end of our lives, is wrong. In fact, when the young man is leaving the villa, the whole matter has left a nasty taste in his mouth. For all the time he has looked like a hero without fear or blame, but at the end he overdoes it, and afterwards he is taken by doubts and maybe remorse. Reinecker was great also because, without ever hiding the evil, he could draw from it profound and positive moral teachings. Believe me, it is a pity to forget such works of the past, because they let those of today blush.
