VOD Review: The Absent One (2014)

"Department Q Part 2 is better than the first one."

A few weeks back, we discovered a Nordic Noir called The Keeper of Lost Causes (review HERE.) The first movie in the Department Q trilogy, we really dug everything about it, and so we immediately knew that we had to see its sequels.

The second movie in the trilogy, The Absent One, is every bit as good as its predecessor, and if we're being honest, it's better in some ways. It's also a lot darker, and it doesn't quite end on a happy note, but hey, we don't really expect all that much happiness when it comes to Nordic/Scandi Crime Thrillers.

Maybe that's why we like them so much.

Even after solving the case and saving the life of a politician that everyone besides Morck and Assad thought was dead (in the first movie), their Department Q is still treated like a joke by the entire department. In fact, they're refereed to as "The Drunk and The Arab" by their peers, because their peers are jealous assholes! It probably doesn't help matters that Carl Morck is still as icy and laconic to everyone, including their new secretary, as he ever was.

ASSAD UNDERSTANDS HIM THOUGH.

After Morck turns away a desperate father who begs him to take a look at the decades-old case of the murder of his twin children, the guy commits suicide. Even though he and Assad have piles of cold cases to sort through, he decides to investigate the man's claims, because he feels guilty as hell. As usual, everyone else but Assad thinks that he's wasting his time investigating something that isn't there, but he's a man on a mission, and he won't be dissuaded.

DON'T WORRY THOUGH, IT'S ABOUT TO GET REAL FOR EVERYONE.

With the help of their new secretary (who turns out to be smart as a whip in addition to being a sexy redhead), they discover that a gang of privileged kids at a boarding school might have been up to some shady shit, such as rape, murder, and playing hooky, none of which leads to anything good for anyone.

Good old fashioned Nordic dysfunction ensues.

T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

In some ways, a movie like The Absent One is a pretty by-the-numbers affair; you pretty much know that you're in for 2-hours of watching some Cops unravel a crime, and that the case is going to be solved by the end. That's alright though, because it's the characters that are really the payoff here. Sure, we love the dark mystery of it all, but the interactions between Morck and Assad (or Morck and anyone, for that matter), are what make these films so enjoyable for us.

As with the first one, we get to see the story from two different timelines: One shows us Department Q in the process of solving the mystery; while the other shows us the crimes as they happened. The melding of the two works well, and with the disturbing nature of the story, ratchets up the tension to a fairly palpable level.

HE BROODS A LOT.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas does a great job of playing the troubled, anti-social Carl Morck, and the relationship that he has with his assistant Assad (played equally as well by Fares Fares) is what makes these movies tick. Morck is a self-destructive but brilliant detective, and you can see him struggling with trying to better himself, become more social, and it's fascinating to watch his journey towards what we hope will be some sort of salvation.

Pilou Asbaek makes for a convincing villain for Morck and Assad to face off against, as there's a quiet intensity about him that just screams bad guy. We've been fans of his since watching him on Borgen, and we're glad to see his star is rising with a key role on Game of Thrones. If he keeps playing roles like this, he'll become even more widely known.

HE'S THE PERFECT EURON GREYJOY.

Murder, rape, people being beaten with pipes, people being set on fire, and a really disturbing twist that went to a rather dark place, The Absent One is significantly more violent and gory that the first movie was.

"PAINT ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR FRENCH GIRLS."

There was more nudity and sex in this movie that we thought there would be, considering that the first movie was basically devoid of the stuff.

WELL THEN...

Rich kids at exclusive boarding schools are always evil on the inside. Also, the troubled girls always fall for them, because they love bad boys and all. 

YEAH, SHE'S TROUBLED ALRIGHT.

The second movie in the Department Q Trilogy, The Absent One felt a lot more seedy and disturbing than the first movie did, and that's a good thing. It's definitely a tougher movie to stomach due to the violent sexual nature of some of the crimes, but it's handled with a level of sensitivity that makes it tolerable, especially since you know that Carl Morck will get his man by the time all is said and done, and make them pay.

We loved this one, and we can't wait to check out the third movie. We hope that there will be more to come after that.

B+

The Absent One is available on VOD now,

Hot Danish chicks, anyone?

VOD Review: Dept. Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013)

"Denmark sure knows how to do Noirish Thrillers."

There's just something about Thrillers that captivate us like no other kind of film can. Movies like Memories of Murder, Marshland, The Treatment, The Silence, or Red Riding, to name a few, have this bleak, gritty feel about them, and they have no problem getting down in the dirt to tell their stories... which are usually a combination of shocking, disturbing, and heartbreaking.

Movie like this usually involve a Cop (or maybe a reporter, or some random person out for justice), who delves into some kind of heinous crime, only to become obsessed and lose a part of themselves in the process.

We're not nihilists or anything, but there's just something about that kind of storyline that speaks to us. Many times, the best of these films come out of Europe or Asia. Maybe they're all nihilists?

With all of that in mind, I wanted to take a minute to talk about this Danish Thriller I saw a while back called The Keeper of Lost Causes. It, along with its two sequels, are hitting VOD this Friday, and we wanted to call attention to it, as it's one of those movies that a lot of people might miss otherwise.

Based on the first book in the Q Series, The Keeper of Lost Causes is the story of Carl Morck; a detective in Copenhagen whose mistake destroys the lives of he and two other Cops. After returning from a leave, he's relegated to working Cold Case files in Department Q, as his abilities are questioned, and no one wants to work with him. Well, they do give him a new partner, so maybe one person. 

YOU DUN GOOFED, SON

When he finds the Cold Case of a female politician who supposedly jumped to her death from a moving ferry, something doesn't sit right with him, and so he beings to dig into the case, which pisses everyone off, and could cost he and his new partner both their jobs and their lives.

Nordic Noir ensues. 

WELL, AT LEAST THEY'VE NARROWED IT DOWN.

As an American, it's always fascinating to me to see how other cultures around the world live. In the case of movies like this, how their Police Departments behave, and how people respond to tragic crimes is interesting. Maybe The Keeper of Lost Causes doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as top notch Thrillers like Memories of Murder or Se7en, but it sure is unique and effective enough to come close. So maybe it does, at least in a way.

This movie is a bit unique in that it tells its story from both the perspective of both the detectives and the victim at the same time, and not in a "cheap gimmick" sort of way. If anything, that device served to ratchet up the tension as the story went on. Speaking of tension, the last 15 minutes or so of the movie, when the Cops are closing in on the truth, is pretty intense, especially given how procedural and relaxed the rest of the movie was.

We're not very familiar with the cast, but we do know Nikolaj Lie Kaas from his role on The Killing (the Danish version), and he's compelling here as the broken detective Morck. Fares Fares is also great as his partner, Assad, as he provides a perfect balance to Morck's doom and gloom attitude. Sonja Richter (When Animals Dream) was also really solid as Merete, a role which looked pretty demanding. Nice job all around by the actors.

DENMARK IS DARK AND FULL OF TERRORS.

If you like Crime Thrillers of the creepy Serial Killer variety, and if you don't mind watching movies with subtitles (which you shouldn't), then The Keeper of Lost Causes should be right in your wheelhouse. It's not all that action-packed, but the way that its mystery unravels kept us on the edge of our seats, especially as the movie wore on. A very solid Nordic Noir, overall.

Give it a rent when it hits VOD on Friday.

B

The Keeper of Lost Causes is on import DVD now, and it hits VOD on 6/17.

Sonja Richter, Patricia Schumann, and Marijana Jankovic are in this.

VOD Review: Sacrifice (2016)

"As is usually the case, the book was probably better than the movie."

(aka The Shetland Mysteries.)
Release Date: April 29th.
Country: UK.
Rating: NR.
Written by: Sharon Bolton and Peter A. Dowling.
Directed by: Peter A. Dowling.
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Rupert Graves, Ian McElhinney, and David Robb.

Sacrifice is based on a popular book of the same name by S.A. Bolton, and so we went into it expecting the movie to be something special.

I mean, all of those book readers can't be wrong, right?

Well...

After suffering four miscarriages, Dr. Tora Hamilton and her husband move to a small Shetland Island community, in hopes of adopting a new baby. She's heartbroken over her losses, but her new home is beautiful and full of hope, so things are looking up. *Cue dramatic music.

[COFFEE INTAKE INTENSIFIES]

When a horse drops dead on her property, she decides to grab a backhoe and dig a massive grave for it  (because what Doctor wouldn't do exactly that), which leads her to discover a corpse buried in the soil. The corpse is missing its heart, and is covered in some sort of Satanic symbols, so she's pretty sure that something is amiss.

THAT'S NO HORSE!

When the local Police don't seem to give a shit about her discovery, she sets out to discover the identity of the corpse, and whoever killed her, because again, what Doctor wouldn't do such a thing, especially after moving to a foreign place where everyone looks at her as outsider to begin with? Over the course of her investigation, she discovers a secret society that likes to sacrifice women (to the God of Wheat, or something), and it's not long before she becomes a target herself.

SHE'S ON THE SNEAK.

The location is gorgeous, and it's captured very well on camera; the cast is solid (Radha Mitchell is always a welcomed sight, and it was great to see Ian McElhinney in something other than Game of Thrones); and the ritualistic  murder plot is interesting enough (if over-complicated and silly); but at the point where Radha Mitchell, whose character has just moved to a small Shetland community, finds a body and confronts the local D.I. with the "Are you really going to turn your back on a ritual murder!" dialogue gem, we knew that we were in for a long 90-minutes.

By the time the movie ended, we were convinced that the producers knew that the movie didn't turn out all that great, and that they just pieced together whatever footage they had to try recoup some of the money that they spent on its production. The ending scene is the perfect example of this: ***ENDING SPOILERS*** After all is said and done, two characters are standing there surveying a crime scene, having a discussion about what happened, and one of them says "They were all someone's daughter!" Then, there's a 5-second shot of a car driving away, and the credits roll; credits which oddly only took a minute or so to scroll by. ***END SPOILERS***

This movie was just too busy, didn't focus and build on the interesting parts of the story, and it was plagued by some bad dialogue and ridiculous character motivation.

"KHALEESI!"

A human corpse, a dead horse, and some knife violence. It's all pretty tame though.

[SEARCHING INTENSIFIES]

Nope.

SHE WAS A QT THOUGH.

Sacrifice plays and feels like a movie of the week that you would have found on one of the Big 4 Networks back in the 70's & 80's; it looks great, and has a solid cast, but the plot is safe and familiar, you can see its twists and turns coming well before they occur, and it doesn't pack much of a punch at all.

Catch this one for free on Netflix or Cable (when it gets there), if you really feel compelled to see it.

D+

Sacrifice is on VOD now.

Radha Mitchell has been one of our faves since Pitch Black.