Scene of the Crime: A Tooth for a Tooth (1985) User Reviews

Schimanski and Thanner - Kings of Cool

[BenCock69 · 5/10 · 10 July 2004]

The beginning of this Schimanski is really great: Thanner and Schimanski are walking through demonstrating people, who smack and are smacked up by the police. They both don't care about it and just walk right trough it, to the place of crime (the "Tatort"). They are the real Kings of Cool, Travolta go home.

Apart from this, the movie seems like the try to make a TV movie a cinema picture, what doesn't work. The action does not fit into the story and so on.

5/10

PS: Charles Brauer plays the bad guy, but he is lot more convincing as "Brocki" in his later "Tatorts" together with Manfred Krug, on the other side of the law.

Great action, weak story line

[Thorsten-Krings · 5/10 · 10 August 2010]

In the beginning of the 80s the Horst schimanski character gave the long running Tatort series a new lease of life. Instead of old men in suits solving crime at a fairly slow pace, we now had foul mouthed hard hitting Horst Schimanski. The shows were usually shown on Sunday night and on Monday the German press would go on about how often he had used the word "shit"- as a policeman on German TV you just didn't do that sort of thing in the 80s. The character was so successful that two of his adventures were actually produced for the cinema without the budgetray restraints of a TV show which often showed in Schimnanski- action is more expensive than detection. However, although Zahn um Zahn looked good and had some really great secnes and action sequences, the bigger budget was not translated into quality. You get the impression that there is no real story but more of an excuse to string the scenes together and send Schimanski to exotic places. The other thing about the film is that inspite of the bigger budget it is un unprecedendet orgy in product placement. The cast is very good: charles Brauer as ice cold villain, Renan Demirkan as love interest and of course George himself. Although George is one of the finest German actors ever, he doesn't show it in the Schimanski films, there is nothing subtle about his acting as opposed to other tatort Kommissars at the time like Klaus Schwarzkopf, Horst Michael neutze (never very popular though) or Walter Richter.

A cult character, but not a great movie

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 4 August 2016]

"Zahn um Zahn" is a crime thriller with action elements and lots of drama and it is a West German production from 1985, which means that it had its 30th anniversary last year. The director is Hajo Gies and he is also one of the four people who wrote this movie. Let me tell you something from a basic perspective first. There is a very famous, long-running crime television series in Germany called "Tatort". There is one new 90-minute episode, in which detectives in certain German cities investigate crimes. And Horst Schimanski was the detective from Duisburg back then. It is probably safe to say that he is by far the most known and popular detective from this series and that is why he did not only get his own series at some point, but also two films: "Zahn um Zahn" from 1985 and "Zabou" from 1987. This is the older one we have here.

A former school mate from Schimanski is found dead together with his family, almost his entire family. And the cops suspect he killed them all before committing suicide. Schimanski does not agree though. He investigates on his own and soon finds the man who ordered the killing. And his motives. But it is a long way until then, and it is full of struggles and losses for Schimanski, from a personal and professional perspective. Schimanski is truly a cult character. He is an alpha male with dark brown hair, a mustache and the women love him. He will not accept orders from anybody if he knows better and he always gives his best to get what he wants, which he usually does. There are , apart from the clothing style, some parallels to James Bond for sure.

I personally liked the start and ending of this movie. The first 10 minutes were solid and so were the last 10 minutes. The problem is that there was much more than an hour in-between that was not fascinating at all to watch. And lets be honest here. Schimanski is a huge cult character and actor Götz George is great for the part, but he is also very gimmicky and there are occasions when the writing is so stereotypical that it does become a bit cringeworthy. All in all, I guess the negative is more than the positive in here and I must say I did not enjoy the watch too much. But George elevated the material considerably. It's pretty easy to buy his performance and that the character is really that way. Rest in peace.