Riders of Justice (spoiler free)

[tiggymalvern]

I spotted last weekend that this film had arrived on Hulu, and yesterday I made time to watch it. Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) is a soldier whose wife is killed in a train crash, and he returns home from deployment to look after his teenaged daughter. A statistician who survived the crash becomes convinced it wasn't an accident, and recruits his tech friends to help him find proof. When the police won't listen, he takes his story to Markus, and they set out to find the suspected culprits.

There's a lot of set up and character establishment in this film before it really kicks off. The first big Anders Thomas Jensen 'OMG, WTF is going to happen now' moment comes about forty minutes in, and it's utterly sold by all the expressions crossing Lars Brygmann's face. Absolute acting genius.

From there it jinks all over the place in classic Jensen style, with hefty doses of droll deadpan humour and some classic one-liners. It's a black comedy revenge fantasy, but there's also a lot of heart to the film, and all the characters are dealing with issues that are given some serious emotional weight (yes, Mads gets his obligatory Major Acting Scene). Sometimes found family is an emotionally stunted soldier, his daughter, and three geeks who will help you plan multiple murders. Plus one other that I won't talk about to spoil the surprise :-)

I think my favourite of Jensen's films is still Adam's Apples, but this one probably comes in second. Would absolutely watch it again.

Comments

[tei]

I LOVED this movie. It really turned on a dime between humorous and horrifying every so often, in ways that would have seemed impossible to pull off if I was just hearing them described.

[tiggymalvern]

That's what Jensen can do so well in his writing. And in this film, the major characters were sympathetic enough (even while acknowledging that Markus's violent impulses were deeply unpleasant) that I could enjoy that ride with them. Whereas in something like Men and Chicken, the whole concept is so appalling from the start that I just can't go there with those people...

[tei]

Hahahaaa yeah men and chickens I… enjoyed? But not really on a character level, I didn’t like any of them, I just had a good time going “what? What!? WHAT???” over and over again.