Riders of Justice

This is a Danish film from Anders Thomas Jensen, and starring the guy who has been in every one of this director's films, Mads Mikkelsen. And that's basically all you need to know (though I'll waffle some more). The presence of Mads inserts just about any film into the 'worth a look' category. Mikkelsen is incredible in Riders of Justice, as a grieving husband who can't accept the fact that he probably needs help - he's all grey bearded intensity, and the slow unravelling of his machismo is fascinating to watch.

There are loads of elements to this film. On the surface, it's a blackly comic, revenge drama, with aspects of farce and slapstick, but deeper in it develops - in no particular order - into a gangland thriller, a crime procedural and a meditation on bullying and abuse. It doesn't end there. There are nods to family troubles, parental responsibility, freedom to choose ways to deal with grief (including violence and religion), depictions of mental health and the mathematics of probability. Oh, and even some odd Estonian-based bookends, which appeared to be based on fairytale imagery. It sounds like they've overdone it, but it works, regardless of how many of these strands you want to focus on.

The story has army tough guy, Markus (Mads), coming home from action overseas when his wife is killed in a train explosion. It's accepted that said explosion was a terrible accident until a passenger on the same train (who gave up his seat to Markus' wife - oh, I forgot, there's guilt as well) uncovers something more sinister involving bikie gangs and an assassination. Telling Markus this news sets the revenge angle to rampage level and the scene of Markus and his three awkwardly anti-social co-conspirators confronting the suspected train bomber is one of the best in the film. 

Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Otto is the counter-balance to Markus, more placid, more reasonable, and the development of this relationship is almost as important to the film as the one between Markus and his daughter, Mathilde, played by Andrea Heick Gadeberg. This father-daughter connection is the fulcrum of the story, where the theme of revenge is supplanted by one of self-honesty and acceptance. It's also the way to get the three nerds into the house - Mathilde mistakes them for the counsellors she has been asking her dad to accept. One of these guys is Lennart, played by Lars Brygmann, who was part of that great Danish police series, Unit One. In fact, he and Mikkelsen play extremely heightened versions of their characters from that show, La Cour and Fischer.

The only real misstep is the fist-pumping climactic standoff, though even this is allayed by the gang leader's final line of dialogue. The penultimate scene (not the Estonian bit) was a cracked mirror of About a Boy, where the camera pans around characters in a loungeroom who have found a new equilibrium. The actual end of the film is a nice little gazump but it happens around 20 minutes before the credits roll. 

Riders of Justice is showing at the Luna and Palace cinemas.

See also:

It'd be just plain wrong to not mention another Mads film here, so I'll go with Thomas Vinterberg's superb The Hunt (2012). And if revenge is your thing, check out Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy (2003), part of his vengeance trilogy.