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.
