Case Explained: A Vigilante Lawyer Investigates Her Own Hate Crime – Legal Perspective

Faraz Shariat’s tightly wound “Prosecution” is a courtroom drama immersed in legalese, but rendered with the gripping intensity of a vigilante thriller. It follows a German-Korean woman prosecuting far-right hate crimes and running up against institutional blockades, until she becomes the victim of a targeted assault. This prompts her to push further and harder against these confines — and circumvent them if she must — at any ethical cost, as the herculean task before her fades into view.

Meticulously researched by co-writers Claudia Schaefer, Jee-Un Kim and Sun-Ju Choi, the story arrives in the wake of a recent uptick in far-right hate crimes in Germany, an apparent universality that Shariat grounds in the hyper-specifics of German law. At the film’s center is Seyo Kim (Chen Emilie Yan), a meek state lawyer looking to make a difference, but who accepts, with begrudging sighs, her department’s 80% rate of dropping hate crime prosecutions as just another part of the job.

While at home in her scant apartment, she speaks to her father in German while he responds in Korean; she seems disconnected from everyone, except occasionally her girlfriend Min-su (Kotbong Yang), whenever she finally answers the phone. During tightly shot and controlled scenes of her arguing in court, Seyo is subject to the gazes and occasional jeers of neo-Nazi defendants and their supporters, but retains her composure as best she can. After all, as characters repeatedly state throughout “Prosecution,” Germany claims the most objective system of law in the world, and maintaining objectivity is paramount. It’s no wonder that, after she’s knocked off her bicycle in a public park and pelted with Molotov cocktails by men in masks, she proves to be a pressure cooker waiting to explode.

Seyo’s immediate response is to throw herself into investigating her own attempted murder, even before she’s left the scene. But her largely Caucasian supervisors, like Senior Public Prosecutor Forch (Arnd Klawitter), insist that she keep her distance. However, with the reluctant help of a fellow non-white colleague, Ayten (Alev Irmak), she begins running a parallel inquiry: sneaking into records rooms to peruse old cases while sticking photographs and news articles on her window, practically walling herself off from the world. When her trial finally begins, she also takes over as her own attorney, not only questioning witnesses, but forcing former victims (some of them vulnerable immigrants) out of hiding, in order to make them testify at the risk of their own safety.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Seyo a self-centered protagonist, but her selfishness stems from a lucid sense of self-preservation. However, the film’s ultra-serious character drama is transformed into pulp — of the most ludicrously enjoyable sort — both by Shariat’s tight visual flourishes, which imbue every dialogue scene with oppressive potency, and by the way the initially straightforward Seyo slowly becomes an antiheroine in the vein of Lisbeth Salander from “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” The pseudo-goth hair and costume choices speak to an inner rebelliousness that isn’t so much unleashed as forced loose by a system that values the appearance of a mythical impartiality over her humanity, leaving her with little recourse but to step outside the confines of the law.

The seemingly insurmountable challenge before her is reflected by the double meaning of the film’s German-language title “Staatsschutz,” which roughly translates to “state protection.” When institutions close ranks and downplay threats in the name of neutrality, who is the state truly protecting?

To be clear, Seyo isn’t an action heroine who employs gadgets or fisticuffs. She’s too physically diminutive for that, which only adds to her desperation. Picture if Marvel’s Daredevil were a lawyer by day, and a lawyer who bends the rules a little by night, and you should know what to expect. Except Seyo’s superhero suit is the everyday attire of a woman driven by anger to violently knock on the doors shut in her face — and kick at them if she must, even if it attracts genuine danger from hate groups and institutions alike. (She does, however, have her own Batmobile in the form of a muscly, matte-black Dodge Challenger, which gets a delicious closing shot.)

Much of the action involves Seyo rummaging through dusty boxes in rooms she shouldn’t be in, lest a security guard come snooping and scold her, or she be handed professional consequences. A slap on the wrist hardly sounds exciting on paper, but the stakes grow as the film goes on. These sequences of process and investigation are captured with all the verve and nerve-wracking tension of a slick spy thriller, aided by a detailed, thundering soundscape sure to leave you on edge.

All of this is made further convincing by Yan’s captivating performance, her first for the big screen. She adds great depth to a woman pushing back against the walls closing in around her. Despite her character’s steely resolve, the star isn’t afraid to sketch moments of determination with glimmers of self-doubt, as Seyo becomes increasingly one-tracked, and perhaps loses sight of the difference between personal vengeance and broader, institutional justice, until it nearly breaks her.

While the resolution to this dilemma ends up somewhat easy, the film remains an alluring liberal power fantasy about challenging systems from within. Which is to say it’s more realistic in its aims than your average, metaphor-laden blockbuster — not everybody can kickflip or attain superpowers — and in the process, it’s sure to draw an especially visceral response from any choir to which its anti-racist sentiments might preach. It may not change the world (after all, few movies do), but it’ll certainly rile you up enough to make change seem far less improbable.