Heimkino sechs

Coming off of a good show, you have hope for the next one.  Coup is supposed to be based on actual events, but a cursory Google search didn't give me anything.  Maybe the name changes have hidden it, or maybe it just isn't a story of note outside of Hamburg...it really seems like something people would talk about, though.

SPOILERS

We begin with a young man explaining how he got interested in motorcycles and engine work, when he fixed a thrown out lawn mower as a young boy and a moped later, and got his own motorcycle when he turned 18, under the approving gaze of his father.  He goes to work at a bank, but is also part of a motorcycle club, two worlds that look at each other with disdain and suspicion.  He doesn't much enjoy his job.  He is the only person at the bank who knows how to do certain operations, since they're boring and unglamorous, so none of his apparently high-society coworkers want to do them, and one of those functions is distributing interest to clients who bring in their interest tickets.  The paper tickets are supposed to be marked so they can't be used again, but everyone is too lazy to bring the special scissors from the basement, so he just uses a hole punch.  If there's a big stack of tickets, he has to divide them into groups for punching, and the holes don't line up.  He realizes he could swipe a bunch of tickets and use them himself in other banks.  He recruits a couple of friends from the biker club to help him, and they open an account in Luxembourg, where the bank manager just barely manages to hide her discomfort at the long hair and skull rings that one of the accomplices sports.  Everything goes smoothly, the three men go to different banks throughout the day and cash in their interest tickets, a few thousands of marks at a time, until they have over 2 million marks to share.  Our hero and one of his associates flee to Australia and start to live it up.  He calls his girlfriend and directs her to get on a plane with their son and join him, but she refuses.  The whole thing sounds ridiculous to her, and besides she's pissed off that he has just been MIA for a whole week.  The police start to harass her and she gets angrier and angrier, while the two financial criminals in Australia start to get homesick.  Eventually, they try to negotiate a return to Germany, saying they'll give back all the money they have left, they only spent about 100,000 marks, in return for all the charges being dropped.  They never quite get the deal finalized, but the man goes back anyway, out of love for his girlfriend and son.  He loses the money he has left, has to go to trial, and after a few years his girlfriend leaves him anyway.  He continues to have the most interesting life he can, though, later buying a yacht with another girlfriend to sail around the world in.  They have some trouble getting out of Thailand.  Now he's back in Hamburg, giving an interview to go with the movie, and when the interviewer asks if he regrets anything, he says, "I only regret coming back."

Is Schlenkerla the best known rauchbier?  It's certainly the one that I see most often.  A rauchbier seems to be fitting for a story like this, where somebody vanishes like smoke after committing a crime.  Obviously there's a smokiness in the aroma and the flavor, but I find it interesting that the beer has a certain creaminess to it.  It gives the feeling of a smoked cheese, with the tiniest hint of saltiness and sourness behind the bitter smoke.