You’re fans of “Dahmer” on Netflix, but also have a soft spot for explicit cruelty? Then “The Golden Glove” is something for you. But beware: the serial killer shocker will soon be disappearing from your Prime Video subscription.
The ten-part mini-series “Dahmer – Monster” is THE Netflix hit of the year. This is not only due to the fact that Ryan Murphy and Co. take a lot of time to make the essence of the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (grandiosely embodied by Evan Peters) tangible, but also due to the fact that true-crime formats are still just incredibly popular. The fact that “Dahmer” relies on a very decelerated narrative tempo and almost completely avoids explicit violence might have come as a surprise to some viewers.
The Golden Glove”, on the other hand, is a completely different story and is only available in the Amazon Prime Video subscription until 21 October. In the adaptation of the novel of the same name, director Fatih Akin (“Kurz und schmerzlos”) deals with the life of the real-life serial killer Fritz Honka, who made the Reeperbahn milieu of the 1970s unsafe with his cruel deeds. Those who like it not only solid in terms of brutality, but also downright disgusting, will get their money’s worth here.
THIS IS WHAT “THE GOLDEN GLOVE” IS ABOUT
eBay deleted listings for Jeffrey Dahmer costumes that were trending ahead of Halloween thanks to a Netflix show about the serial killer, saying they ‘promote or glorify’ violence. But there’s a merch market for every notorious murderer on the site.https://t.co/6GOmOH7DMQ
– miley (@MilesKlee) October 19, 2022
Fritz Honka (Jonas Dassler) lives in Hamburg’s St. Pauli district in the 1970s. To others, his puny figure makes him seem like a loser, almost pitiable. When Fritz is not working as a labourer, he likes to spend his nights in the local pub “Zum Goldenen Handschuh” (The Golden Glove), where he always drinks himself into a stupor. This is also where Honka gets the chance to get close to lonely women and then stalk them.
What nobody knows: the inconspicuous-looking man with horn-rimmed glasses and a depressed face is probably the most notorious serial killer of post-war Germany. Fritz Honka likes to rape, beat and strangle his female victims and then dismember the bodies before disposing of them in the back of his flat. To prevent the stench of decay from getting out of hand, he distributes hundreds of miracle trees, thus avoiding police attention for a long time.
SUBTLE, BUT ALSO GOOD?
In the official FILMSTARTS review, “The Golden Glove” received a solid 3 out of a possible 5 stars. In his conclusion, our author Carsten Baumgardt writes: “Fatih Akin’s shocker adaptation of Heinz Strunk’s bestseller is an adeptly staged, convincingly equipped serial killer ballad and crudely accurate milieu study, which at the same time fails to make the tragedy of the main character, who is simply repulsive here, tangible. “
Whoever has read the novel knows that Heinz Strunk’s great strength lay in presenting a person who is ALSO a serial killer. In Fatik Akin’s film adaptation, this approach is reversed: here we are introduced to a monster who – unfortunately too rarely – also has human traits. The emotional added value, of course, falls largely by the wayside, as the focus of the production is on the grandiose set and the disgusting excesses of violence (“The Golden Glove” has truly earned its FSK-18 rating!).
Even if Strunk’s original is far more precise in terms of psychologisation, “The Golden Glove” as a film can also convince as a milieu study apart from its repulsive shock moments. Atmospherically, Akin brings out the big guns: “The seedy demimonde of the Reeperbahn bars, where drunks, prostitutes and drug wrecks meet to drink themselves to death, is very well captured. Here, the dry humour of Strunk’s writing also comes into its own wonderfully – and shows the lost existences precisely as people who apparently have no alternatives.
