Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Thursday, March 6, 2025

DEPARTMENT Q: THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES / KVINDEN I BURET (2013)

Cleanly-handled Cold Case procedural from Denmark plays like a pilot for a series.  And so it is; just not for Denmark.  Someone (Dick Wolf?  NetFlix?) out soon with the inevitable Stateside reboot; no doubt hoping for more episodes than the four fat-free films made a decade back.  The first two  directed by Mikkel Nørgaard, who certainly has range (see KLOWN and BORGEN) and a knack for straddling tv & features.*   A prologue shows detective Nikolaj Lie Kaasmade jumping the gun on his last case and now finding himself in recovery; if back on the force, but out of homicide, demoted downstairs to process rather than investigate low-priority/unsolved murder cases.  Aided by low-ranked assistant Fares Fares, they single out a Cold Case worth reinvestigating and soon find it's considerably warmer than expected.  A rare kick these days to be able to follow a plot that adds up.  So unlike today's typical over-stuffed crime shows that need to stretch out every ambiguous moment to fill an eight episode contract.  Seeing these two guys getting into trouble breaking rules and protocol in the name of fighting for delayed justice surprisingly satisfying.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Three more films by almost the same team followed (not seen here, all based on novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen; ABSENT ONE/’14; CONSPIRACY OF FAITH/’16; JOURNAL 64/’18) in presumably similar style.  OR: *Something completely different from Nørgaard in the rudely comic KLOWN/’10.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/06/klovn-klown-2010.html

No comments: