Schimanski is the most famous and popular cop of the "Tatort" series which has been running for the last 30 years or so. Horst Schimanski's rough manners and unorthodox methods made the character so popular and famous to this day. George's acting is without doubt another reason for Schimanski's fame. This episode, as the title suggests, is set in the seedy port area of Duisburg. Schimanski and Thanner are investigating the murder of a sailor. Soon they find out that there is much more behind the case than at first apparent on the surface. Quite a complicated story; it's also quite realistic in comparison to other police shows. The ongoing conflict between the rough Kommissar Schimanski and his colleague Thanner make this show quite amusing.
2 Reviews
The good mensch from the Ruhrpott
semiotechlab-658-9544427 August 2010
Between 1981 and 1981, famed German actor Götz George played in 29 episodes Hauptkommissar Horst Schimanski. Since then, he continues playing this character until now, produced by a private TV company. Typologically, Schimanski is the first Tatort-Kommissar who comes from the gutters, although in one out of the 29 movies he tells a young girl that his mother spoiled him from tip to toe. However, his extremely rude and unconsidered behavior that is never filtered by an intellectual instance, seems to prove the first alternative. The negative part of his never happened socialization is more or less equalized by his unconditional efforts for the victims. Schimanski is a kind of a Robin Hood from the Ruhrpott, he does not accept any hierarchies, included also his bosses and basically the whole police organization (besides himself). Because of his extremely courageous, yet primitive commitment, he is, in Duisburg, from all police offers the one with the highest number of arrests. (Bad tongues would say: If someone shoots with a Kalashnikov towards a Dart board, he cannot avoid certain hits.) On the other side, Schimanmski has to pay a high price for the one who he is: Incapable of self-reflection, he defrauds himself even of his old age money when, after having been arrested himself, he refuses to enter again the police corps. So, still in his old days, he continues the unsteady and fragile life of a private-investigator, living (feeding) on his on past, being revered as a (formal) hero, and yet not as a human being anymore. So, amongst his friends there are exclusively out-laws, drug-addict youths, homeless people (with whom he spends often the nights, the schnapps-bottle at his side). In this way, he is becoming more and more his own caricature. However, the even more tragic part of this story about the character Schimanski is the real actor Götz George behind it, now having passed his 70th birthday since a while already. George has proved that he is capable of extremely subtle and differentiated acting, but with his continued assuming of the role of Schimanksi, he seems just to share soon the bad fate of his character.
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