The Kick (Der Kick)

Markus Lerch, Susanne-Marie Wrage

On July 12, 2002, outside the village of Potzlow, Germany, four friends let an apparently routine binge-drinking session get out of hand. Before the night was over, 16-year-old stutterer and hip-hop d...( read more  )evotee Marinus Schoeberl was beaten and killed by brothers Marco and Marcel Schoenfeld, aided by their friend Sebastian Fink. The body was discovered in a shallow grave some four months later, and each of the three boys was tried, convicted and jailed. Not a single picture of the crime scene, victim, accused, courthouse or families is shown here. Rather, on one deserted level of a large warehouse, using a bench and a movable, elevated box lit from within and entered by one of two doors, the numerous players in this tragedy are acted via transcripts by black-clad thesps. Eventually, it is revealed that the parents are stunned at the tragedy but insist they raised the children properly, while the harrowing accounts of prosecutors and the boys themselves reveal the aggressors were skinheads who apparently killed Marinus because he stuttered and was Jewish--and that made them mad.