Actors
Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares headline a high-end adaptation of Jussi Adler
Olsen's Scandinavian crime novel, scripted by "Dragon Tattoo"
screenwriter Nikolaj Arcel.
A difficult but unswerving Danish cop reopens the case of a female
politician who allegedly committed suicide in The Keeper of Lost Causes,
another effective, great-looking and well-acted Scandinavian crime film based
on a bestselling novel.
Gruff and steely star Nikolaj Lie Kaas (The Killing, Angels &
Demons) is perfectly cast as Inspector Carl Morck, the hero of Jussi
Adler-Olson´s Department Q novels. Shot in the line of duty, he is
assigned to Dept. Q when he returns to work, where he´s asked to classify 20
years of cold cases with just one assistant, Assad (Lebanese-born Swedish actor
Fares Fares, from Safe House and Zero Dark Thirty). Of course
Morck can´t help himself and reopens a case as soon as he can.
The adaptation, directed by Mikkel Norgaard (Klown, TV series
Borgen) and scripted by top local screenwriter Nikolaj Arcel (the
original-language Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, A Royal Affair,
which he also directed), will be released locally Oct. 8 and has already sold
to numerous other European territories. It had its world premiere in Locarno
and should appeal to outlets looking for quality genre titles with franchise
potential.
The believably mismatched Assad (of Syrian origin in the novel, which goes
unmentioned here) and Morck find themselves in the basement of their police
station, which gives them the advantage of not being in the sightline of
Jacobson (veteran actor Soren Pilmark), Morck´s boss who´s made it clear
Morck's appointment to the new department is intended to keep the hothead away
from his colleagues, who blame him for the shooting -- seen in the prolog --
which not only sidelined Mork but killed one officer and paralyzed another.
The case that picks the fancy of the duo (which is less reliant on Assad's
prodding than in the book) is a cold case from five years earlier, when a
successful politician, Merete (Sonja Richter) supposedly jumped off a
ferry to kill herself, leaving her mentally disabled younger brother, Uffe (Mikkel
Boe Folsgaard, the King from A Royal Affair) behind.
Following the structure of the novel, Arcel constructs two parallel
narratives. In the first, Morck and Assad hunt for clues. As soon as they've
unofficially reopened Merete´s case, the second storyline -- which doesn't run
parallel time-wise for most of the film but which editors Morten Egholm and
Martin Shade integrate with clarity -- follows Merete´s true ordeal.
Through clever plotting and mise-en-scene, the right information is moved into
place while crucial faces or connections are kept from the audience until the
final act, which takes place in the villain's country lair.
The question thus becomes not whether Merete intended to kill herself but
if the cops will arrive in time to save her as she grows weaker and weaker from
years of imprisonment in a pressure tank. Crucially, the audience will root for
her survival because they´ll know who she is and have witnessed everything
she´s had to go through, including a squirm-inducing sequence in which Merete
has to pull out her own teeth.
Kaas effortlessly carries the film as a determined and solitary figure
fully dedicated to his work because as a divorced man he doesn't have much else
going for him -- while his difficult teenage stepson (Anton Honik) has
wild sex, Morck struggles to even ask a woman out for a drink. Fares and
Richter offer solid support and Folsgaard, one of Denmark's most promising
young talents, delivers another note-worthy performance as the handicapped
brother who can't use words to express himself but who's clearly been
traumatized by the events in his life.
Widescreen cinematography by Eric Kress (another Borgen
alumnus) and production design by Rasmus Thjellesen (Klown,Pusher
II and III) are both big-budget smooth and particularly impressive in
the way they use shadows and light and especially color, which occasionally
goes from quasi-naturalistic to something more saturated and expressive, such
as the interior of the pressure tank, which is a dank, hellish green punctured
by black shadows in the recesses. The score by Patrick Andren, Uno
Helmersson and Johan Soderqvist helps augment the tension, especially in
the otherwise slightly formulaic home stretch.