“Death Will Come” is less of a whodunit than why do it when it comes to crime films, even when it centers on an investigation into the murder of a courier named Yann (Pitcho Womba Konga). You see his death as you might in an old episode of “Colombo” with a gun protruding from a just-opened door without revealing the identity of the person behind it, but from there director Christoph Hochhäusler takes a slightly different tact than the murder mysteries of yore when the most likely culprit, crime kingpin Charles Mahr (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), who hired Yann to transport cash hidden inside the frame of a valuable oil painting before being stopped by police, is the one to hire Tez (Sophie Verbeeck), a private investigator who will kill if she has to, to look into the matter.
There is a serious intent to the playful quality that Hochhäusler and co-writer Ulrich Peltzer establish in “Death Will Come” shortly after credibly setting up what might look like a standard issue policier with a car chase up front that ends in Yann’s arrest. It may be a surprise to see Yann out of custody so soon, and just as quickly onto another realm, but so too is the introduction of Mahr in a VR headset, unstimulated even when he’s beckoned to feel up a sex doll in front of him as part of the experience. He obviously isn’t in the reality he wants either inside or outside the helmet, having to wonder what’s become of his criminal empire when testing out the equipment when he’s considering making more of an investment in the company run by a peer and occasional rival De Boer (Marc Limpach). But indicative of what he’s done in the rest of his life, the morally questionable part of the activity isn’t what’s troubling him, but the fact he’s deriving no pleasure from it in any sense.
Beyond instigating a similar line of interrogation for the viewer who may seek vicarious thrills from this particular genre, Hochhäusler’s perversion of gangster tale tropes allows for an entirely new line of inquiry when Mahr sets up an investigation that finds its way back to him in more ways than one. “Death Will Come” dutifully follows Tez as she looks into why Yann was carrying the precious cargo to begin with and why anyone would want to kill him when he did no harm to anyone, but the richer territory is the soul-searching Mahr is doing as he’s slowed down when neither money or power never seemed to have held much interest for him, as it does for De Boer or his second-in-command Zinedine (Mourade Zeguendi), and another peer/rival Mela (Delphine Bibet) actually seems relieved to have her sight taken away from her by eye disease to carry on the relationships she does, quietly manipulating things behind the scenes.
It’s unlikely Tez will be the one to provide Mahr with the answers he’s looking for, as adept as she is at her job and clearly cut from the Lisbeth Salander mold of unorthodox sleuths, but having their quests for meaning occur in parallel gives “Death Will Come” a larger one when fate may be cruel but the desire to have too much control can also be bedeviling when plotting out every detail hasn’t left Mahr with much of a life. Hochhäusler can’t be accused of the same thing, making the film’s curious detours part of its pleasure and when, for instance, Tez is urged at a club to follow her interest in a bartender by Mela, you could start to think it’s a waste of time as much as the non-nonsense assassin thinks it is as an extended break from the action, but as she turns her detective skills towards seduction, “Death Will Come” reveals that even in what can be known, there is still the capacity to find something new and as it observes characters that struggle to give themselves that leeway, that elasticity is clearly where the rewards are.
“Death Will Come” does not yet have U.S. distribution.