"Bernhard Kimmel, head of the infamous Al Capone gang, did not choose which place to burglarize next. He had to figure out which places he had not yet hit. Cracking up to three safes at different locations in the course of one night, Kimmel and his colleagues made fools out of the authorities in post-war Rhineland-Palatinate for years ? living nearly perfect double-lives as god-fearing citizens and productive weavers during the day. When they were finally arrested, it was not for their unparalleled prowess as burglars, but because of an unfortunate, drunken accident that left one innocent man dead.

Director Peter Fleischmann met Bernhard Kimmel just after his release from prison in 1970. He interviewed the newly reformed criminal and struck up a friendship that would be put to the test in 1982, when Kimmel was again arrested: this time for killing a police officer while fleeing the scene of another crime. Fleischmann, who had started out his conversations with Kimmel wanting to know the man behind the local legend, saw his friend sentenced to life-imprisonment.

When Kimmel was paroled after 22 years in prison, the director was finally able to finish the intimate portrait of a man who had spent most of his life behind bars ? clinging to the legend of who he once was and trying to find out how to fit into a world that passed him by.

The result is ?My friend the murderer? ? an astounding and astute meditation on guilt, punishment and friendship."