Protestant minister Lena Fauch has temporarily given up her work in the community since the death of her husband, a SWAT officer. How can she offer comfort to others when she doesn’t understand herself why her husband had to die? Only when her old friend and mentor Bader falls ill and asks her to substitute for him as police chaplain is she unable to refuse his request. Her first case, a gun rampage in a beer garden, escalates and the daughter of the gunman, who was under Lena’s custody, is severely injured. Torn between the desire to retreat back into her shell and the hunch that the station is trying to cover up what really happened in the gunning attack, Lena attempts to unearth the truth.
Based on Olaf Kraemer’s script (edited by Astrid Ströher), director Kai Wessel has sensitively staged a crime story that is both suspense-filled and moving, with an outstanding cast even in the smaller roles. Veronica Ferres as the police chaplain, the matter-of-fact confidante and unwavering truth-seeker is at the heart of the action. This “TV movie of the week” deals with the gun shooting and the traumas of the perpetrators with such intensity that in this confrontation between violence, crime and Christian values the attention focuses more on the victims and the psychological dimension.
