Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sleeping Dog’ on Netflix, An Intriguing Thriller-Mystery Series From Germany (2024)

In Sleeping Dog (Netflix), a Berlin police inspector – once a hero, now a pariah – and a young prosecutor eager to prove herself are drawn together to reopen a murder case which, according to the system, is a done deal, open and shut. But a jailhouse suicide and lingering questions about evidence and motive would seem to suggest otherwise. Sleeping Dog, or Schlafende Hunde in its original German, has a six-episode run; leading a strong cast is Max Riemelt, who played Wolfgang of the August 8th Cluster on the unfairly canceled Sense8.

SLEEPING DOG: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: This is daily life in prison. Walk this way, walk that way; yard time. Also, some beefy guys might surreptitiously pass you a shiv.

The Gist: Taking that scalpel to his wrist is Mussa Basher, a young Moroccan man who’d been inside for the murder of a prominent Berlin judge, a murder Detective Mike Atlas (Riemelt) and his partners Luka Zaric (Carlo Ljubek) and Roland Sokowski (Antonio Wannek) put him away for. But it’s been almost a year since the trial, and these days Atlas has left the force, left his wife Lenni (Peri Baumeister) and teenage daughter Tinka (Tara Corrigan), and is living on the streets, where he’s haunted by fractured memories of the Mussa case and a tragic fire in a festival square.

Mussa always claimed his innocence, but with his suicide, it falls to rookie prosecutor Jule Andergast (Luise von Finckh) to assess what the trigger was and whether or not to open an inquiry. But Jule’s questions about Mussa’s behavior in prison and his visitors – especially his friend Idris, who’s now gone missing – are shut down by her hardass district attorney boss (Melika Foroutan), who agrees with Hartloff (Martin Wuttke), a high-powered defense lawyer, that there’s nothing to warrant revisiting Mussa’s case. Atlas has reason to reopen the case, too, but no one will listen to him since he left the force in disgrace. “Instead of seeking therapy, you let yourself go,” the DA tells him. “I want you back, but you urgently need professional help.”

Atlas and Jule don’t know it yet, but they’re working Mussa’s suicide and the same inconsistencies in his case from opposite sides. And while Atlas has some contact with Tinka, he remains estranged from Lenni, who confides in Luka in his absence. Luka and Roland are also training their new partner Adebayo (Melodie Wakivuamina), who encounters racism and prejudice at the department and in the field. And when Jule uncovers new evidence from Mussa’s life regarding the true nature of his relationship with Idris, it only leads to more questions, the kind that lead right back to the district attorney’s office, the stonewalling lawyer Hartloff, and Atlas, Luka, and Roland’s original murder investigation.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Sleeping Dog is based on The Exchange Principle, a 2016 series from Israel that found a former police investigator, also named Atlas, driven to wandering the streets by job-related stress and trauma. And though it was an indie noir, not a series, there are also thematic parallels between Sleeping Dog and Jeremy Saulnier’s striking 2013 film Blue Ruin.

Our Take: The threads Sleeping Dog is weaving together in its early stages are certainly intriguing. Trauma has made Atlas a man who can’t trust his own memories, but he’s nevertheless driven to see where they lead. (Max Riemelt is particularly adept at portraying a guy who’s simultaneously afraid of his failing mental faculties, and determined to regain the life he lost.) At work, Jule can’t get out from under the legacy of her legendary lawyer mother, now passed on, but she also isn’t buying the open and shut narrative her hard-driving DA boss is selling regarding Mussa’s case. Jule is also young and hungry, with a tenaciousness that’s putting her on a collision course with Atlas; it’s clear that these two – wait for it – won’t let sleeping dogs lie. And what they’re stirring up seems bound to have consequences for those in power, like the lawyer who patronizes Atlas’s unhoused status and mental state but is somehow connected to Mussa’s low-level criminal brother. Somebody in this whole mess is lying, and across its limited six-episode run, Sleeping Dog will offer more than enough threads of discovery on which to tug.

Beyond the work Atlas must put in to find his way back, what might be most intriguing here is what’s happening with Luka, his former partner. We see him offer his support to Adebayo, the young detective who experiences an ugly racist incident, and understand the on-the-job bond he shared with Atlas. But then he visits his troubled ex-partner’s wife at home, and that gets a load of side eye from Atlas’s daughter Tinka. Luka’s links to Mussa’s brother and family are also still emerging. So is he a good guy? A bad guy? Or a good guy gone bad? For now, Sleeping Dog is keeping the answer to that elusive.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode beyond a few naked butts in passing.

Parting Shot: Jule has made contact with a friend of Mussa and Idris, who’s much more willing to answer her questions than the dead man’s conservative Muslim father. But upon meeting her contact, she makes a gruesome discovery.

Sleeper Star: Max Riemelt and Tara Corrigan have a few excellent scenes together as a father and daughter driven apart for various reasons, but who very much still love each other. And as one of her dad’s only definable allies, Corrigan plays Tinka with a winning mix of teenage suspicion and childlike adoration.

Most Pilot-y Line: “It’s been eight months, Lenni,” Luka tells Atlas’s wife. “Something needs to happen.” In Sleeping Dog, whether Luka’s actually for or against his fallen partner reclaiming his former life is part of the mystery.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Sleeping Dog is a satisfying, intriguing thriller-mystery, with a damaged but noble character at its center and larger observations to make about class and perception in contemporary German society.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter:@glennganges