Crime
Cape Fear
The latest remake of ‘Cape Fear’ is a TV show this time—and that provides so much more time to add the worst forms of problematic content.
Have you ever practiced mindfulness? It can be a powerful tool in your mental health arsenal. It can help you focus on the task at hand without getting distracted. It can help you stay cool in heated situations.
And for Björn Diemel, it can help him commit murder.
Björn hasn’t always been a violent guy. “Quite the opposite,” he says. He’d never been in a schoolyard fight or a bar brawl. And he was 42 before he committed his first homicidal action.
But Björn hasn’t always been a mindful guy either.
As a defense attorney, he represented some of the worst criminals Germany had to offer, mostly mobsters. While his bosses cashed the checks of those lowlifes, Björn was the one actually getting his hands dirty, doctoring books and getting hardened criminals out of jail for crimes they absolutely committed.
Björn hated his job. But instead of giving his employers a piece of his mind, Björn would bottle it up and bring it home to his family—causing him to argue relentlessly with his wife, Katharina, and all but ignore his daughter, Emily.
Luckily, Björn discovered the practice of being mindful. With help from his mindfulness coach, Joschka Breitner, Björn learned how to be “in the moment” with his wife and daughter. He learned how to breathe through stressful situations and let go of his emotions.
Breitner also taught Björn the importance of removing things from his life that caused him the most anxiety. And, quite unintentionally, that lesson led to Björn permanently removing one particular person from his life.
Dragan Sergowicz was Björn’s best and worst client. Sure, as the head of a notorious criminal organization, Dragan gave Björn’s law firm plenty of business. But because of all that business, Dragan also felt entitled to Björn’s time.
Dragan would call multiple times a day (and night) making outrageous demands. What did Dragan care if Björn’s marriage was falling apart? Why should it matter if Björn had plans to spend the weekend at the lake with his 4-year-old daughter? If Dragan needed Björn’s services to cover up a murder, then by golly, Björn was going to come through.
And if Björn refused … well, then little Emily just might find herself in harm’s way.
If only Dragan had known about Björn’s recent mindfulness lessons. Perhaps he wouldn’t have threatened Emily. (Or maybe he would have: Dragan wasn’t exactly known for his cool temperament.) Perhaps he would have listened to Björn’s advice to turn himself in.
Perhaps, if Dragan had taken a moment to breathe and focus—as Björn did—then he’d still be running his criminal empire. Instead, he crawled into the back of Björn’s BMW and ordered Björn to drive him to his lake house (with Emily riding shotgun). When they arrived, Björn took a deep breath and decided that the most important thing in that moment was to focus on Emily’s happiness. So instead of releasing Dragan from the trunk of the car, Björn left him there to rot … literally.
Of course, as Björn soon realizes, murdering mindfully—even disposing of the corpse mindfully—is one thing. Covertly running your victim’s many, many illegal operations without alerting the cops or your victim’s goons to the truth is another. It’s hard to remain calm and mindful with all that going on.
Yeah, all the breathing exercises in the world aren’t going to make that job easier.
Netflix’s Murder Mindfully—or Achtsam Morden, as it’s known in its original German—is a clever little crime comedy that likes to embrace the positive aspects of mindfulness while also poking just a bit of fun at the breathing-focused practice.
For instance, Björn’s relationships with his wife and daughter do improve when he starts being more mindful. He and Katharina stop fighting. He and Emily begin to bond. And Björn even starts to see some of his deepest wishes and desires come true.
But obviously, Björn abuses the practice. He uses it to successfully get away with killing people. He uses it to manipulate others into doing what he wants. And ultimately, as the seasons progress, it gets him into even more trouble as he clashes with rival gangs, forcing Björn to commit even more murders.
The show acknowledges those problems: We do see how Björn’s “solutions” often cause more issues than they resolve. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop Björn from doing bad things—and it certainly doesn’t cause him to lose any sleep at night.
And that’s nothing to say for the show’s multiple content concerns.
Obviously, we’re dealing with quite a bit of murder. After Björn leaves Dragan to suffocate in the back of his car, he chops the body into pieces and sends them through a wood-chipper, literally flooding a lake with blood and goopy gore.
But we see characters die bloody deaths elsewhere, too: One guy gets some grenades strapped to his groin. Two people overdose on cocaine after they’re tied down and forced to snort the stuff. Another gets mowed down by a truck. Dragan himself sets a man on fire and beats the guy to death with a crowbar while a bus full of 12-year-olds look on in horror.
Mobsters also seem to enjoy violence for the sake of violence. They beat up some victims, torture others, and when all else fails, a Molotov cocktail through the window isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Those gangsters also make their trade in selling illegal drugs and weapons. We don’t see a lot of drug use onscreen, but heavy smoking and drinking are quite common.
Foul language is another big content concern, up to and including the f-word (dutifully repeated in the subtitles or dub): More than once, we even hear 4-year-old Emily repeat profanities that she hears adults nearby saying.
In Season 1, there’s not a ton of sexual content, but we do see a blurred pornographic video (turned up to full volume) in the background of one scene. In Season 2, things get much spicier when Björn has sex with a single mom from his daughter’s school. Throughout the series, we sometimes see people in their underwear. And one of Dragan’s “business” enterprises is a prostitution ring, which we hear quite a bit about in both seasons. (There’s also one mention of human trafficking, though we don’t ever hear more about it.)
Perhaps if the creators of Murder Mindfully had been more mindful themselves, they might not have stuffed so many problems into a single series. But I suppose they just did what Björn did: took a few breaths and decided it wasn’t their problem.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
When Björn’s biggest and most dangerous client commits a crime on camera, he’s ordered to take the man into hiding. But Björn’s recent mindfulness lessons present an alternate, more homicidal solution to him.
Björn pushes pieces of a chopped-up body through a woodchipper into a lake. We see the carnage wash up on the beach. Ironically, just before this act, he takes care to avoid crushing a snail with the wheelbarrow carrying the corpse. A video shows Dragan setting a man on fire before beating him to death with a crowbar. A bus full of 12-year-olds witnesses this attack, and we hear them screaming in fear. When Dragan spots them, he hops on the bus and threatens to kill them if they say anything. A vehicle behind him explodes just after he issues this warning.
Dragan slams Björn’s head into a table, threatening to crush his and Emily’s skulls unless Björn cooperates. We hear that a man robbed a jewelry store at gunpoint, knocking out the manager with the butt of his gun.
When talking about prostitution, we see a flash of a woman removing her top to show her bra. Björn jokes that his wife isn’t happy about their sex life. Björn’s mindfulness coach encourages him to move out of his house so that he and his wife will stop arguing so much. It creates a more stable environment for their daughter, and they indeed start to get along better, but they do not move back in together once things get better.
Björn defends a guilty client by claiming that the man’s violent crime (robbing a jewelry store) was a misunderstanding, that he was simply an immigrant trying to adapt to German life. Björn says his main client, Dragan, runs a crime ring involved in prostitution, petty theft and trafficking drugs and weapons. While Björn is good at his job—keeping Dragan and his goons out of jail and hiding their dirty deeds from the cops—he admits that it weighs heavily on his soul. He misses his daughter’s birthday because of this work, and we see evidence of how it’s negatively affecting his family life.
Björn’s bosses take advantage of him, forcing him to help Dragan get away with illegal stuff while refusing to promote him at the firm. The firm’s receptionist is condescending to Björn, mocking him for his lack of promotion. When she insults him in front of his daughter, Björn insults her back, which clearly hurts the woman’s feelings and certainly doesn’t set a good example for Emily.
People smoke cigarettes. Some folks drink champagne. We hear that Dragan would sometimes throw parties with “blow and hookers.” We also hear a bit about Dragan’s drug trafficking exploits.
There are 10 uses of the f-word and eight of the s-word. 4-year-old Emily repeats a use of the latter, scolding her father that he shouldn’t say the word. We also hear “a–,” “a–hole,” “d–n,” “d–k” and “h—.” God’s name gets abused a couple of times, once paired with “d–n.”
We hear a lot about mindfulness, particularly that it allows “your body and mind [to] act in unison.” As it’s presented here, the practice has no religious links, but we do hear a lot about breathing exercises. Björn makes a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Björn says multiple times that he’d be willing to do anything to protect his daughter and give her a better life. So when he begins practicing mindfulness, it helps him to put his words into action. The breathing and focusing exercises do seem to have some positive effects. He stops bringing his work stress home with him, allowing him to have a more positive relationship with his wife and daughter.
Björn’s mindfulness lessons fail him during a family vacation. When a waiter is rude to him, he loses his temper and arranges the man’s death.
During his encounter with the rude waiter, Björn grabs the guy roughly by the shirt. Later on, he sneaks into the back of the restaurant and moves some crates around so that they’ll topple over into a ravine when the waiter comes back to lean on them during his smoke break. We don’t actually see the waiter fall, but Björn later learns that the guy indeed fell and broke his neck. (Björn lies to his mindfulness coach that the waiter only broke his leg.)
We learn that Björn has kidnapped and imprisoned the leader of a second crime syndicate in the basement of his daughter’s daycare. A police officer with suspicions of Björn’s homicidal activities finds a toy with a recording of Björn confessing. Unfortunately, she accidentally records over the confession.
Björn and his wife are still living in separate houses. On vacation, Björn leans in to kiss Katharina, but she turns her face so he only gets her cheek. When Katharina learns that the waiter died (she’s unaware of Björn’s involvement), she gets upset with Björn for being so mean to the guy. Björn tries to defend himself, but Katharina points out that while the guy was being rude, Björn’s response was no better, especially since he took out his anger on Katharina, too. She then threatens to divorce Björn and take Emily away if he doesn’t schedule another appointment with his mindfulness coach.
A flashback takes us back to one of Björn’s family vacations, when his father scoffed at families spending money on “frivolous” food while his own family ate homemade sandwiches. Björn, who was just a child at the time, was obviously hurt by his father’s disregard for his wishes. Upon hearing this recollection, Björn’s mindfulness coach encourages him to take his “inner child” seriously. He says that while Björn’s inner child explains Björn’s outburst at the waiter, Björn is still responsible for those sorts of outbursts and must find ways to heal the wounds of his past.
When Björn buys an expensive gas-guzzling vehicle, someone criticizes him for the environmental impact. Björn retorts that electric vehicles have their own carbon footprints to consider. When some guys at a playground near Björn’s house wake him in the middle of the night, he throws ice cubes at them to get them to leave.
People drink beer at a restaurant.
There are three uses of the s-word. We also hear “a–hole” and “d–mit.” Emily repeats one of these words after her dad says it. God’s name is abused four times, twice paired with “d–n.”
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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