If you are concerned about all the injustice arising in Turkey and Russia. This is entertaining and relaxing as the good ones still exist on all sides. Not a big cinema movie, but worth watching from a European - inside all of this - perspective.

I don't understand all the whine. For all those who know the German TV series "Tatort" it should have been obvious how this movie will be. It is certain that the film roughly follows the TV series plot. What else did you expect? So if one does not like the movie character Nick Tschiller or the actor Til Schweiger it is absolutely clear that he will not like this movie at all. Besides the story is very simple. People who prefer a certain depth of the plot will be disappointed because the story follows simple rules. On the one side there is the good and on the other side there is the bad. The good one is, of course, Nick Tschiller and the bad ones are numerous more or less dangerous gangsters. Sure the good had to face several dangerous situations before he finally succeeds. And though the story itself is rather poor it can not be denied that the director manages to make the movie thrilling in general. So if you like shallow entertainment you can buy this, if you want to see a real good movie you better watch anything else

With this description, I am referring to the 3.6 rating here on IMDb. It is accurate. "Tschiller: Off Duty" is a German movie from earlier this year. The director is Christian Alvart and writer is Christoph Darnstädt. Maybe the two names are already enough for audiences to make a connection to the successful German "Tatort" series. And if not, then the name Tschiller should help as well as he is the character played by Til Schweiger in the Tatort franchise. This film here is sometimes also called a "kinotatort" as he reprises the role for the big screen. I personally don't like the Tatort series at all. In my opinion, the level is very weak most of the time in these small screen production and the long tradition of "Tatort" just won't cut the cake anymore. There are many superior crime film productions from Germany these days, for small screen and big screen. Is this one here one of these? Not really, unfortunately. Tschiller is of to Turkey in order to find his daughter who wants to kill a crime-lord in a plan that includes personal revenge. But obviously things don't go as planned at all and Tschiller has to save the day.The direction this film takes is the same from the Schweiger "Tatort" films. It relies very much on action sequences, explosions, shootings etc. But this of course is not enough. A good film needs a good story and not just shallow spectacular sequences. Character development and writing are very weak in here sadly. It's a mix of Bond, Bourne, maybe Mission: Impossible too and the plot about saving your daughter from crime organizations abroad reminded me a lot of "Taken". But Schweiger is no Neeson. Schweiger is an okay actor when it comes to comedies with some romance and also some emotional depth, but every time he aims for drama (without comedy entirely), things go pretty wrong. There are two or three very cringeworthy scenes when it comes to his line delivery, but in his defense, you cannot blame him alone. The screenplay is probably even worse than Schweiger's performance. The scene with "turning 18" at the very end is the best example. You can see the filmmakers' ambition to make it an emotional highlight, but the talent just isn't there and that's why it becomes fairly embarrassing. There are more scenes like that and given the fact that this movie runs for way over 2 hours, there is no denying that it drags a lot while moving from one spectacular action sequence to the next. Don't watch.