The Story:
In the shadowy underbelly of Munich, German-American Vietnam veteran Ricky (Karl Scheydt) returns home not as a hero, but as a hired gun for three crooked cops, striding through the streets in a crisp white suit and fedora alongside his loyal childhood pal Franz Walsch (Rainer Werner Fassbinder), while awkwardly reuniting with his nagging mother and childlike brother in their old neighborhood.
As Ricky coolly dispatches his targets, a seductive twist unfolds when he requests female company and receives Rosa, the girlfriend of one of the corrupt officers, who unexpectedly falls for the stoic killer, sparking her boyfriend Jan’s furious jealousy and a deadly contract on both lovers—culminating in a heart-wrenching betrayal where Ricky, echoing noir legend, executes the woman in his embrace at point-blank range.
In this audaciously bonkers Fassbinder fever dream of isolation and obsession, Ricky’s desperate bid for escape at the train station is foiled by his family’s tearful farewell, leading to a slow-motion symphony of gunfire and grief as police bullets fly, and his brother collapses in a frenzied, forbidden embrace with the fallen body—proving love is colder than death in this gritty 1970 gangster noir.
