"Der Metzger muss nachsitzen" is an award-nominated German movie from 2015 and the second Metzger film that aired really immediately after the first on television. It also runs for 90 minutes and again director Andreas Herzog reunited with writer Holger Karsten Schmidt, who adapted the Thomas Raab novel for the small screen. As you can see from the title, there is a bit of school involved here. A former classmate of Metzger (Palfrader, who reminded me physically of Wotan Wilke Möhring) is killed and actually Metzger finds that one surprisingly himself, but when he goes to inform the police, the corpse is suddenly gone. But it shows up again no worries. However, I must say him finding his own class mate was already slightly too much coincidence for my liking. Now just like the first it is again a film that does not take itself seriously most of the time, but something was missing here. I liked the first film more, maybe because I am just not too big on Palfrader as the lead actor for more than oen movie. I don't know. I mean he lacks charisma a bit, but that actually would have worked in favor of the story here because we constantly see flashbacks how Metzger was constantly bullied by his classmates back in the day. The class reunion idea and execution is not helping matters either and I felt it was just getting too personal and no loonger the crime film it should have been, even if the investigation is of course always an important matter. And just like in the first film, a second character dies here and it was not the same killer for both of them. Maybe one problem I had here was that Dorka Gryllus, who is basically a co-lead in the first film, is barely existent in this one. At the end, she gets a little more screen time (and she brings her dog again too), but even if she elevated the material again, it just didn't feel right. Her character felt wasted somehow and the material she had, such as also her knocking down the bad guy despite his gun, felt not particularly realistic. This is a bit of a pity because I quite like Andreas Lust and he was a good addition, so the cast was certainly there for another good film. The bad guy was also interesting enough, but yeah the first hour really did not feel too authentic and also dragged more than I wanted it to. So honestly I am not too surprised that in the almost five years now since this came out, they did not make a third film or even more and it seems it is over for good now. With the drop in quality for this one here (only the last third felt interesting and still had its flaws), I cannot say I am too angry or sad about that. Eventually, it was a bit of a close call, but this one gets a thumbs-down from me overall. The very final scene with the guy jumping down I did not like too much either. It would have fit better for the film to end on a lighter note, even if they obviously had to explain somethhing about the story still and I get that. And perhaps Palfrader's and Gryllus' character now becoming a couple as it is indicated also at the very end was not good enough for me either. So yeah, I suggest you skip this one and maybe only watch if they really make a third film at some point to be back in the story or if you really really loved the first, so you don't mind this one here getting a bit worse.
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