Not long after the Fall of the Wall, a group of former Polish Stasi agents are integrated into the police force. Franz Maurer (whose intelligence career was aided by his marriage to a Politburo member’s daughter) loses three of his men in the line of duty while fighting organised crime. Soon it becomes clear that the brutal slayings could only have been carried out by his ex-colleagues – and whoever is pulling the strings seems to be above the law. Maurer’s vendetta against his corrupt and cynical social environment serves as an allegory of post-Communist conditions. Capturing the essence of the era, this iconoclastic and provocative mafia thriller became an audience favourite within the new cinema of “immoral unrest”.
Not long after the Fall of the Wall, a group of former Polish Stasi agents are integrated into the police force. Franz Maurer (whose intelligence career was aided by his marriage to a Politburo member’s daughter) loses three of his men in the line of duty while fighting organised crime. Soon it becomes clear that the brutal slayings could only have been carried out by his ex-colleagues – and whoever is pulling the strings seems to be above the law. Maurer’s vendetta against his corrupt and cynical social environment serves as an allegory of post-Communist conditions. Capturing the essence of the era, this iconoclastic and provocative mafia thriller became an audience favourite within the new cinema of “immoral unrest”.