The Golden Glove () is a 2019 internationally co-produced horror drama film directed by Fatih Akin. It was selected to compete for the Golden Bear at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival. The film is an adaptation of Heinz Strunk's eponymous novel and tells the story of the German serial killer Fritz Honka who murdered four women between 1970 and 1975 and hid their body parts in his apartment. The Golden Glove is named after the pub in the red-light district of Hamburg where the disfigured alcoholic Honka met his victims. The Golden Glove is the first film by Fatih Akin to receive an 18 rating in Germany.
Plot
In 1970, alcoholic night watchman Fritz Honka murders Gertraud Bräuer, a prostitute, in his squalid Hamburg apartment. He carves up the body, getting rid of some parts by throwing them away in a suitcase, while the rest are kept in an improvised locker in his wall. The police find the suitcase but cannot identify the culprit.
In 1974, Fritz sees schoolgirl Petra Schulz hanging out with her classmate, Willi. Despite their short encounter, Petra becomes a recurrent protagonist of Fritz's sexual fantasies. Fritz spends nearly all his free time at The Golden Glove pub, often soliciting prostitutes that reject him in disgust. One night Fritz brings home Gerda Voss, a vagrant, who is allowed to pass the night conditional on having sex with him. The next day however, Fritz allows her to stay in exchange for sex and housework, as well as a signed contract of being introduced to her attractive daughter, Rosi.
After having lunch with Fritz's recently divorced brother Siggi, Fritz and Gerda go to the pub to meet Rosi. Gerda finally confesses that Rosi and her are completely estranged and that she will not be coming. Outraged, Fritz shatters his glass and begins bleeding. While he is washing himself in the bathroom, an evangelist offers Gerda rehabilitation, which she gladly accepts. With Gerda gone, Fritz approaches three alcoholic women: Inge, Herta, and Anna. As a fight breaks out at the pub, they tag along with him, although Herta passes out on the street and is left lying there. Upon arrival, Fritz asks the women to perform oral sex on each other. While Anna is too drunk to care, Inge adamantly refuses and Fritz beats her up, but she manages to escape. To vent out his frustration, Fritz kills Anna by smashing her head against a table. Her body is also quartered and put in the locker.
The following morning, a still-intoxicated Fritz is run over by a van. He survives and visits the pub for the last time before giving up drinking altogether. Now consistently sober, he takes up a night shift as a watchman at an office complex, where he meets cleaner Helga Denningsen, whom he finds attractive. At Helga's birthday party, Fritz is disillusioned to learn that she is married to a man named Erich. When Erich leaves, a saddened Helga reveals to Fritz that her husband has been unemployed for months and now resorts to leech off her. After sharing a few drinks, Fritz relapses and attempts to rape Helga at their next encounter, but she flees.
Fritz is back at the pub and brings another prostitute, Frida, to his home. While having sex, he beats her up for laughing at his erectile dysfunction. Once Fritz falls asleep, Frida begins robbing the apartment. In retaliation, she rubs Fritz's genitals with spicy mustard. When he wakes up in pain, she kicks him in the groin and insults him. A violent fight breaks out, with Frida being strangled, battered, and cut up by Fritz. In the following days, he lures Ruth to his apartment, who suffers the same fate.
One night, Willi convinces Petra to go to The Golden Glove in order to win her over. In the bathroom, Willi unintentionally provokes an older man, who urinates on him. Humiliated, he locks himself at a stall and refuses to get out when Petra comes to check on him, asking her to leave without him. Fritz notices Petra and follows her through the streets, only to discover that his apartment has caught fire. Firefighters find the corpses and Fritz is immediately arrested.