DIE TRIXXER (RTL)

In Berlin, a team of con artists helps a group of pensioners to get their money back and targets a ruthless mob boss.

In november, French private channel TF1 aired Con Me If You Can! (international title of Ni vu, ni connu). A terrible 90-minute comedy blatantly "inspired" by Hustle and Leverage. But three years ago, German private Channel RTL ordered a 45-minute pilot called Die Trickser, about a team of top notch grifters fighting for justice with sophisticated plans and tricks of the art. Produced by Endemol, it was written by Timo Berndt (Wilde Engel, Der Clown) and directed by Oliver Schmitz (Doctor's Diary). Die Trickser starred world class German actor Reiner Schöne (his impressive resume includes Knots Landing and Babylon 5) as Alouis, the team leader. It also starred Anja Nejarri, Mirko Lang (Post Mortem) and Gregor Törzs.

RTL didn't greenlight a series but commissioned a 90-minute second pilot, produced by Wiedemann & Berg Television, the joint venture between Endemol and producers Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann. Written by Ulf Tschauder (GSG9) and Christoph Darnstädt (Das Experiment), and directed by Dennis Satin, Die Trixxer - note the two Xs - aired yesterday night on RTL. Reiner Schöne is back as Alouis with the other original cast members. Anja Nejarri is his daughter Maya (a former cop), Gregor Törz is Sebastian - owner of a café in Berlin which is the team's HQ, and Mirko Lang is ambitious newcomer Len. Markus Boysen, as arms dealer Brahms , and Anna Julia Kapfelsperger, as his scatterbrain daughter Buschi, are amongst the guest stars.

90 minutes is 45 too many for the uninspired result. Two Xs in the title don't save Die Trixxer from its lack of charm, rythm and characterization, in spite of the always valuable presence of Reiner Schöne. And the situations are inevitably deprived of originality. The redeeming quality of this second pilot is that it doesn't use excessively the visual and music codes of its illustrious predecessors, unlike Con Me If you Can! Though we're not spared a Mission: Impossible peel off. Holger Handtke is excellent as Brahms's henchman Melström, and Susanne Szell (Verliebt in Berlin) plays a LKA officer.

Ratings were not satisfying enough for RTL to order a series. From what we know Mickey Stone sleeps well. He even returns very soon on BBC One for the highly awaited final series of Hustle.

In German:

http://www.rtl.de/cms/sendungen/serie/die-trixxer.html
http://www.quotenmeter.de/cms/?p1=n&p2=54015&p3=
http://www.quotenmeter.de/cms/?p1=n&p2=54060&p3=
http://www.dwdl.de/nachrichten/33618/die_trixxer_rtl_testet_ende_dezember_neue_serie/

CON ME IF YOU CAN! (TF1)

US networks spend fortunes in development, ordering myriad of drama pilots to get one or two regular shows but French television, of course, cannot do that. When you're not pubcaster group France Télévisions (with the licence fee money) or pay TV Canal Plus (home of Spiral) and want to limit risks, then it leaves you two options: buy a foreign format or seek inspiration elsewhere.

TF1 does both. It aired the French official version of Law & Order: CI and has "The French CSI", RIS Police scientifique, which is actually the official remake of an Italian format. The private channel also airs an adaptation of ITV1's juggernaut Doc Martin. But sometimes they find their inspiration abroad without necessarily buying the format: the laughable L'Hôpital was a copycat of Grey's Anatomy, the costly soap Seconde chance was the French Ugly Betty, and the short-lived La Loi selon Bartoli was basically France's answer to The Mentalist and House.

Yesterday night TF1 ventured into another familiar territory with Con Me If You Can! (international title of Ni vu, ni connu), a 90-minute TV movie aired in their primetime Monday night comedy slot. Lino Vars (Thierry Neuvic) is a good husband and father. His wife Karen (Laure Marsac), a frustrated painter, thinks he works as an airline pilot and ignores that Lino is actually a top notch con artist. With his friend Oscar (François Mercantal) and Eléonore (Lizzie Brocheré), a young actress, they form a team of grifters targeting the rich and the powerful. Commissioner Chambort (Francis Perrin) dreams to catch Vars, although his idiotic assistant Camus (Raphaël Lenglet) is of no help.

The team's latest con, selling the Eiffel Tower to a Russian mob boss, backfires when the man wants revenge. Lino Vars finds in the situation an opportunity to con a famous painter who made a fortune with an idea of Karen. Written by Stéphane Kaminka and Brigitte Laude, and directed by Christophe Douchand, Ni vu, ni connu is an assumed nod to the movie Catch Me If You Can (2002). It also borrows visual and music codes to a genre popularized on TV by Hustle, the BBC/Kudos hit, whose notoriety is here far from equivalent to what it is in the UK.

Of course Hustle itself is not the epitome of originality (see Ocean's Eleven and a 2003 movie called Confidence) but it makes the difference with its style and its great cast, starting with its lead Adrian Lester. Past the similarities with Hustle or Leverage, Con Me If You Can! is a standard monday night TF1 comedy. Amusingly, the talented Francis Perrin - who plays the cop - was a con artist in a wonderful French comedy series of the 80s called Le Mythomane.

Ni vu, ni connu, a Franco-Belgian co-production by GMT Productions (Julie, Police Commissioner/Julie Lescaut), with Stromboli Pictures, RTBF and TF1, attracted 5.109.000 viewers (19,5%). Castle won the night with 6.111.000 viewers for France 2 (21,8%). From what we know, Mickey Stone sleeps well.

http://www.tf1international.com/fiche.php?Film=892
http://www.ozap.com/actu/audiences-tf1-petit-leader-castle-puissant-france-4-et-france-3-faibles/437596 (In French)