General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Komm, süßer Tod

Komm, süßer Tod (English title: Come Sweet Death) is a 2000 Austrian crime comedy directed by Wolfgang Murnberger, based on the novel of the same name by Wolf Haas, with Josef Hader starring as the ex-detective Simon Brenner¹. The story follows Brenner, now working as an ambulance driver in Vienna, as he is drawn into a violent rivalry between two competing rescue services and a string of murders¹. It was the first screen adaptation of Haas's Brenner novels and is regarded as the start of a new type of Austrian crime comedy²^•³.

Key fact	Detail
Original title / English title	Komm, süßer Tod / Come Sweet Death¹
Director and screenplay	Wolfgang Murnberger; screenplay by Murnberger, Wolf Haas, and Josef Hader, after Haas's novel¹^•⁴
Lead cast	Josef Hader (Simon Brenner), Simon Schwarz (Berti), Barbara Rudnik (Klara), Nina Proll (Angelika Lanz), Karl Markovics (Jäger)⁵
Release	Austria 15 December 2000; Germany 20 September 2001¹
Format and length	35 mm color, 108 minutes³
Music	Sofa Surfers¹
Austrian admissions	232,009⁶

Spoilers

Plot

After an affair with the wife of his superior, the Vienna police officer Simon Brenner is dismissed after 19 years of service and takes an unambitious job as an ambulance driver with the "Kreuzretter" service⁵. Because the city of Vienna pays for every patient delivered, rescuing the injured becomes a fight between the Kreuzretter and the rival "Rettungsbund": whoever arrives first collects the fee⁵. The rivalry is fought with every available means, including patients being "stolen", blood-bank chiefs bled, and ambulance drivers artfully eliminated⁷.

Brenner's return to detective work begins when two lovers, in mid-kiss, fall to the ground, struck by a well-aimed shot⁸. A second murder follows, this time of a Kreuzretter colleague, and when the police arrest the wrong man, Brenner intervenes⁹. Together with his colleague Berti, a conscientious objector doing his civilian service as a driver, and his old love Klara, he uncovers the truth behind the ruthless competition between the rescue organizations and places himself in danger⁵^•¹⁰. In the end the perpetrators are exposed or dead, and Brenner, though battered, emerges victorious as a detective².

Source novel and the Brenner series

The film adapts Komm, süßer Tod, the third of what were then seven Brenner crime novels with which Wolf Haas achieved cult status in German-language crime fiction². Murnberger's 2000 film was the first time a Brenner novel was adapted for the cinema². The screenplay was written by Haas and Murnberger together with the lead actor Josef Hader, an Austrian cabaret performer²^•⁸.

The novels' humor rests on a distinctive narrator who, on familiar terms with the reader, tells the taciturn Brenner's story in an idiom-rich, Austrian-flavored German full of wordplay and local lore². Murnberger described his aim as retelling Haas's style in a "lapidary", unstrained way¹¹.

Production

The film was produced by DOR FILM with support from the Austrian Film Institute (ÖFI), ORF under the Film/Television Agreement, and the WFF⁹^•⁶. The producers were Danny Krausz and Kurt Stocker; Peter von Haller was the cinematographer, Evi Romen the editor, and the band Sofa Surfers wrote the music⁹. Shooting took place in Vienna from May to July 2000⁶.

Release dates differ slightly between sources: Cineuropa lists the Austrian theatrical release as 15 December 2000, while the Austrian Film Institute gives 21 December 2000¹^•⁶. The German release followed on 20 September 2001¹.

Reception and legacy

The film drew 232,009 cinema admissions in Austria, and a 2008 Austrian cultural program in Boston reports it received an award as the most successful Austrian movie of 2001⁶^•¹². After a strong start at the Austrian box office it opened the Saarbrücken festival and was shown in Rotterdam, where the International Film Festival Rotterdam screened it in its 2001 main program¹¹^•⁸.

Film Archive Austria's retrospective notes that at the start of the millennium the film created an entirely new type of Austrian crime comedy, with the wit running until a morbid moment catches the laughter in the throat³. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 92% audience score, and the Lexikon des Internationalen Films called it a surprising demonstration that the crime-comedy genre was not lost for ambitious German-language cinema¹³^•¹⁴.

The film launched a series: Murnberger and Hader followed it with the Brenner adaptations Silentium (2004) and Der Knochenmann, and the Votiv Kino in Vienna marked the 25th anniversary of Komm, süßer Tod with a renewed theatrical run and a discussion with Murnberger, Hader, Reinhard Nowak, and Nina Proll¹⁵^•¹⁶.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2000–2004 films › Released 2000 to 2002

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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