Anika Jahn (Lucie Hollmann) and Vanessa Born (Aylin Werner) are student nurses in the Saarbrücken hospital. In addition, the young women are volunteers in the association "Medizinians for Asylum", which takes care of illegal refugees. In the evening, when the semester party begins, Anika helps injured asylum seekers, while Vanessa celebrates exuberantly. When she returns to the nurses' hostel, she finds her friend dead in bed, strangled with a robe belt. Chief inspector Jens Stellbrink (Devid Striesow) and his colleagues Marx and Emmrich investigate the victim's environment. Was it the doctor Dr. Sharifi who Vanessa was having an affair with? What are the roles of the caretaker and orderly, both of whom seem interested in the student? And what does Kamal Atiya know, who fled Egypt with his brother and knew both women?
How is it for people who are illegally staying in Germany and who fear being deported at any time? The "Tatort" provides an answer to this question using the example of the refugee Kamal Atiya. He had to flee Egypt because he was being persecuted as a Coptic Christian. In Germany, however, he is only Nafri, says the young man in one scene. In order to get a Duldung, he agrees to lousy deals with the head of the immigration office. A fatal decision with a dramatic end.
Unfortunately, the film plods along like a mediocre evening series and serves too many clichés. The dialogues are meager, the actors - except for Devid Striesow - pale and everything seems to have fallen out of time. The fact that Chief Inspector Stellbrink draws his analysis with chalk on a blackboard says it all. The "crime scene" does not have to deliver any revolutionary innovations, but a little more modernity would have been nice - especially since the topic is red hot.
It is the last case for Devid Striesow as chief inspector Jens Stellbrink, who joined the "Tatort" family in 2013 as a likeable oddball, but was never really able to convince. However, that was not due to Striesow, but to the weak cases. At his own request, the 47-year-old ended his "crime scene" engagement. "The Pact" is his eighth and final episode. "At some point it's all over. And bye!" says Inspector Stellbrink at the beginning of the film. He just wants to express that his colleague Mia Emmrich was promoted – but it sounds like his personal farewell.
Designated fans of Devid Striesow are welcome to tune in to the repeat of the thriller, everyone else can save themselves the case - you won't miss anything!
"Tatort: The Pact" was first broadcast on January 27, 2019. ARD repeats the case on July 29, 2022 at 10:15 p.m.
