On
the one hand, you have the Sondereinsatzkommando (the SEK), the German version
of SWAT. On the other, you have neighborhood punks, who are barely organized
enough to be considered a gang. Yet, they are both as tribal as they can be.
They have socialized together in a drunken brawling kind of way, but serious hostilities
will flare when an outsider plants the wrong gun on the wrong innocent suspect
in Philipp Leinemann’s The Kings
Surrender (trailer
here),
which screens as part of Kino! 2015, the festival of German Films in New York
City.
The
SEK of an unnamed but clearly economically depressed German city are going
through a rough patch. When raiding a drug dealer’s flat, an officer is badly
shot. One of the presumed shooters gets away. This is particularly bad news for
the SEK, because the local politicians are considering doing away with one of
the squads, because the city is so obviously safe and secure. Bad press like
this does not help. Nor does it lead to clear-headed decision-making by Kevin,
the hot-headed squad leader.
Meanwhile,
in a storyline soon to intersect with the SEK officers, charismatic Thorsten
leads a group of local toughs that is nearly as much a social thing as it is a
criminal enterprise. Let’s just say, they do a lot of drinking. For some
reason, Nassim the son of an immigrant grocer idolizes Thorsten, despite being
at least a full generation younger than his idol. To curry favor, Nassim arranges
a job for Thorsten’s best bud Ioannis at his father’s store. Unfortunately, in
a fit of juvenile jealousy, Nassim plants a gun he found in Ioannis’s locker
and drops a dime with the cops. Yes, that would be the gun from before. Soon,
both groups are caught up in a wave of vengeance-taking, while a few skeptical beat
officers try to protect Ioannis from their more prominent colleagues.
Casting
for Surrender probably included a
mandatory swagger test. Yet, even with all the testosterone in the mix, the
film’s vibe is more reminiscent of the moody thrillers of the 1970s that often
featured moral ambiguous antiheroes and a preoccupation with institutional
corruption. There is a lot of rottenness in Surrender,
but there is no denying the gritty atmosphere and the power of the ensemble
performances, particularly Ronald Zehrfeld as the unraveling Kevin and Samia
Muriel Chancrin, as one of the few women characters of note—Nadine, the street
cop who refuses to be intimidated by the SEK’s posturing.
