That’s what “Reverse” is about

A shadow hangs over this thriller: just two months after the shooting of the new Magdeburg « Police call : Rescue ”(Sunday, Ard8:15 p.m.) Pablo Grant died of thrombosis in February 2024. The Berlin actor and musician was just 26 years old. “Reverse” is more than just any TV film-it is also the tragic and unplanned farewell to investigator Günther Márquez, which in this case also takes on a small supporting role.

Police call 110 from Magdeburg: That’s what “Reverse” is about

Main commissioner Doreen Brasch (Claudia Michelsen) is clearly in the middle. It stays in the car, blinking wind turbines protrude outside the snowy fields when a call tears them out of sleep. It is the control center. The surprise then follows on site: The woman who was hit by a car and is now lying on the forest floor next to the country road is not dead, but only unconscious. The stranger ends up in the hospital and then in a coma. But she turns out to be extremely mysterious – even her roommate hardly knows anything about the mid -forties. Was it an accident with a driver’s flight? A crime? Or a suicide attempt? The traces are poor – and Brasch’s search begins.

It quickly becomes clear: somehow the Magdeburg star architect René Tamm (Stephan Kampwirth) is involved in the events. But he says that he never saw the woman. For Brasch’s supervisor, Criminal Councilor Uwe Lemp (Felix Vörtler) is it not clear anyway: is there a crime at all? He tries to keep the investigative effort small – also so that he does not get lost with the prominent architect and his lawyer. What happened here?

In “Referring” the viewer tracks down the riddle at two time levels

The interesting trick of this Magdeburg « Police Call » is the skillful comparison of two time levels: Again and again the viewer is not only shown the investigation, but also the events two months earlier, which ultimately led to that fateful morning on the roadside. In this way, the viewer comes closer to the solution to the puzzle of two sides – until the present and past, riddle and truth, finally meet.

Unlike many other television thrillers, “Referring” almost completely saves the investigator’s private side. This allows the film to concentrate on the case for 90 minutes without a distraction, but has the disadvantage that the figure, apart from a few, delicate hints, remains relatively pale and inaccessible – Doreen Brasch becomes a film, which is based on the viewer, and does not ask questions. This is not objectively bad, but definitely a matter of taste.

This police call is deeply sad – and a bit boring

So who is this woman who is in a coma – and what is the big puzzle about her? Even if the film is ultimately quite long (so as not to say: boring) due to the lack of variety, real twists and large, exciting highlights, the puzzle somehow stays on the ball. And the resolution at the end is deeply sad, tragic and devastating. The last setting of « Reverse » is similar to the scene at the beginning: wind turbines rotate over snow -covered fields. « Thank you, Pablo »: The team says goodbye to the late actor with a text blind. And the gray, heavy clouds that hang over the last film by Pablo Grant stop in the sky. The redeeming rain, the relief, the hoping look ahead, that in the end everything will be fine is failing. Sometimes it is in life and in film.