The Collini Case – Review

Based on a novel of the same name, The Collini Case brings a strong legal thriller to your screen. Weaving in dark themes as well as courtroom drama, this film covers plenty of ground, morally, ethically, criminally, legally and otherwise. It reflects fine performances all around, and gives the viewer plenty to consider by the end credits. A well-directed feature, The Collini Case should satisfy your courtroom conflict desires.

Opening with a brutal killing in Berlin, the story’s long journey to the truth is just beginning. The year is 2001, and a young attorney named Casper Leinen balances his life in and out of the courtroom. His life is about to change.

A man walks through a long hallway and knocks on a door. Another man opens the door, and lets him inside, asking which paper he worked for again, under the pretense that he is admitting a reporter to his room. Instead, he hears a gun cocking. As Fabrizio Collini (Nero) exits this room and heads down to the lobby, his blood-stained shoe drags a trail behind him. He sits in the lobby, and waits for arrest, admitting to a hotel clerk that he just there is a dead man upstairs in the presidential suite.

Casper is still a novice counsellor; however, he winds up catching the case as a public defender. It is revealed that Collini is an Italian-born citizen, that speaks German and has lived in Stuttgart for around 30 years. Collini says nothing when Leinen interviews him. The evidence appears overwhelming, however not a ton is known yet. The news reveals that a man named Jean-Baptiste Meyer (Zapatka) has been murdered, shot three times in the head.

Jean-Baptiste was the owner of MMF, the Meyer Machine Fabrik, a high-profile company, and strangely enough, a mentor to Casper when he was younger. Casper used to spend time with the Meyer family, as his own parents were busy or gone, as his mother was always working and his father left when he was two. He spent summers with the Meyer family, personally learning from Jean-Baptiste, and even made it into the legal career he has thanks to his help.

This brings the Meyer family back into his life, as the granddaughter Johanna Meyer (Lara) visits from London with Casper about the case. She doesn’t understand how such an awful thing could happen to her family. As a public defender however, Casper was assigned to defend the killer, which does not sit right with Johanna. Casper has to face his own past, and ethical dilemmas, as he finds out more about what happened that fateful day in the hotel between Collini and Meyer.

I found the pacing to be about right, and the plot presented some emotional moments. The story deals with sensitive and complex topics with appropriate measure, and was quite well presented. It is definitely worth checking out for those that like legal dramas.