Riders of Justice (Retfærdighedens ryttere)

This is a man you don’t want to mess with.

(2020) Action Comedy (Magnet) Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Andrea Heick Gadeberg, Lars Brygmann, Nicolas Bro, Gustav Lindh, Roland Møller, Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt, Anne Birgitte Lind, Omar Shargawi, Jacob Lohmann, Henrik Noël, Gustav Giese, Klaus Hjuler, Peder Holm Johansen, Christina Ibsen, Rikke Louise Andersson. Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen

 

A teenage girl’s bicycle is stolen. A mother’s car won’t start. A recently fired statistical analyst gives up his seat on a commuter train to a pregnant woman. Coincidences? Or part of a discernable pattern?

Markus (Mikkelsen) is inclined to believe the former. You see, his wife was the mother whose car wouldn’t start. She is also the pregnant woman who the statistical analyst gave up his seat for. When a freight train crashed into the commuter train, the analyst survived the crash. So did the teenage girl, Mathilde (Gadeberg), who is Markus’ daughter. Markus’ wife did not. Markus, a Danish soldier serving in Afghanistan, returns home to take care of his daughter, but the relationship between Markus and Mathilde was strained to begin with. Markus isn’t the most talkative guy, after all.

Then Otto (Kaas), the statistical analyst who owes his survival to his act of chivalry, shows up at his door along with his colleague Lennart (Brygmann). Otto is convinced that the crash was no accident; you see, he saw someone get off the train moments before the crash, throwing out a nearly full beverage and uneaten sandwich in the process. That seemed suspicious. However, one of the other victims of the crash was a man about to testify against a powerful biker gang, the Riders of Justice. Otto’s algorithm shows that the odds of the crash happening randomly is almost astronomical. The accident was almost certainly created, and the most likely suspect is the biker leader, and after the two analysts bring aboard computer hacker Emmenthaler (Bro) and his facial recognition software which connects the person who got off the train to the Riders of Justice, Markus has a new mission: vengeance.

A typical action revenge thriller would move in a specific direction from this point, with plenty of set action pieces, some brutality, maybe a bit of comic relief and a cathartic final confrontation. This is far from typical, however; for one thing, the comedy is a bit darker and more in the foreground. For another, there is some depth here as the three nerds try to get Markus to psychoanalyze himself, and in doing so, analyzing the machismo ethos that dominates action movies and to a certain extent, modern life.

Mikkelsen has become one of my favorite actors. He has absolutely perfect body language throughout; often a coiled spring waiting to release all sorts of rage-fueled energy, but dead-eyed right up until the point he explodes. Markus is a man of few words so much of what Mikkelsen has to get across is done through facial expression and body language.

Jensen, who also co-wrote the script with Nikolaj Arcel (the two also co-wrote the disappointing adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower), utilizes his musical score note-perfect, if you’ll forgive the pun. The writing is also really tight, well-plotted and logically laid out – when the analysts talk about probability and statistical analysis, it almost makes sense. Makes one wonder if such an algorithm might not someday be figured out by some similarly bright boy that might predict seemingly random events. Even better (and exceedingly rare for an action flick) the background characters are fairly well-developed, meaning the audience will care what happens to all of them. The final twist is a humdinger, too.

=This is not your average action movie but don’t let that put you off. The action sequences and fight sequences are well-staged. Markus may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s a badass nonetheless. The comedy elements don’t distract from the action, but rather enhance it. Yeah, it’s a little bit different but not so much that it’s annoying and that difference actually makes the movie more enjoyable.

I imagine that there are action fans who will be turned off by the subtitles, but then most are willing to put up with them for great Hong Kong action movies and this one is certainly up there with some of the best of those. This played the recent Florida Film Festival and was my favorite film this year; it’s playing at the Enzian right now for those ready to make the trek into theatres. For those that aren’t, it should be on VOD fairly soon.

REASONS TO SEE: Really, really well-written. Mikkelsen seethes and simmers. Just off-beat enough to be interesting, but not enough to be annoying.
REASONS TO AVOID: Drags a little during the middle.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, violence and some sexual situations.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the fifth time that Mikkelsen and Kaas have appeared together in a film directed by Jensen.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/18/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 94% positive reviews; Metacritic: 80/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Very Bad Things
FINAL RATING: 8.5/10
NEXT: Citizen Penn

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The Whistleblower

Sometimes the peacekeepers aren't so blessed.

(2010) True-Life Drama (Goldwyn) Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci, Vanessa Redgrave, David Strathairn, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Roxana Condurache, Paula Schramm, Alexandru Potocean, William Hope, Rayissa Kondracki, Jeanette Hain, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Hewlett. Directed by Larysa Kondracki

In the course of our working day, we often see things that we find repugnant. Most of the time, we just let things slide. After all, why get yourself into a tizzy over things you can’t change? Once in awhile however, we run across things that we just can’t leave alone. We have to put a stop to something that is heinous.

Kathy Bolkovac (Weisz) is a hard-working police officer in Nebraska. She is recently divorced and her husband has been awarded custody of her daughter. He is now moving to Georgia for a new job and Kathy is doing her level best to find work down there but hasn’t been able to as of yet. Her commanding officer tells her about the potential of making $100K working as a UN peacekeeper in Bosnia after the end of the Bosnian civil war.

This will enable Kathy to eventually move to Georgia when she finishes her six-month tour. She agrees and is given a position with the security contractor Democra and before long she helps train the Bosnian police in successfully prosecuting the first case of domestic abuse since the war ended. It’s a difficult job at best, given the still-simmering mistrust between ethnic groups and the attitude towards women in general in the region, but she perseveres and gets her conviction. This brings her to the attention to UN official Madeleine Rees (Redgrave) who installs her in charge of the Office of Gender Affairs, there to investigate crimes against women.

 Boy, does she find one. A ring of human traffickers are bringing women into Bosnia to serve in forced prostitution, particularly in the case of 15-year-old Ukrainian Raya (Condurache) and her friend Luba (Schramm) who were sold to human traffickers by her own uncle. When Raya is discovered beaten to the point of near-unconsciousness, Kathy investigates the incident and is shocked to discover that not only were the Bosnian police complicit in the affair but so is the United Nations and high-ranking diplomats and military personnel. Kathy will have to battle apathy and indifference in a bureaucratic nightmare that has some powerful forces arrayed against her, and the health, welfare and very lives of innocent young women in the balance.

This is based on an actual case and yes, Kathy Bolkovac is a real person. She worked for the real life company DynCorp which Democra substitutes for here. More on that in a minute.

This is an unflinching look at what is one of the fastest-rising crimes in the world. Human trafficking is at an all-time high and shows no signs of slowing down. Director Kondracki is obviously passionate about the subject and that passion is reflected in Weisz who gives Bolkovac a simmering, dogged personality. Not knowing much about the real Kathy Bolkovac, I can’t say whether that’s accurate or not but I can say that it fits the needs of the character in this movie nicely. Weisz as an actress can be extraordinary when given the right role. This isn’t her very best work but it’s darn near.

She is aided by an excellent supporting cast including Redgrave, regal and majestic as the UN official and Strathairn, as an internal affairs officer at Democra who helps Kathy in her investigation. Kaas plays a Dutch member of the international Democra peacekeeping team who enters into a romantic relationship with Kathy as well as a professional one.

The movie’s dark tone is underscored by the dark cinematography which occasionally descends into murkiness. There are scenes where it is difficult to ferret out what’s going on. A few more lights might not have been a bad idea here. Also, it feels like major plot points have been edited out or skipped over. I don’t mind reading between the lines in a movie, but this one needed a few more that would have helped explain some of the goings-on.

In real life, the investigation cost Bolkovac her job, forcing her to sue DynCorp in the British courts. DynCorp fired seven people (including Bolkovac) and reassigned several more but to date the company has never paid any restitution for its role in the incident. Personally, I find this sort of injustice infuriating; at the very least they should have been find and personally I think they should have lost every government contract they have. Not so much because their employees committed crimes under their aegis, but because they complicitly supported them by protecting them and impeding the real-life investigation of Bolkovac. To my mind, that’s unconscionable.

This could well have been an important movie and still might be. I don’t remember a movie dealing with the human trafficking subject that was this stark and this realistic. For once you get an idea of the degradations and horrors that these girls go through and the sexual slavery aspect isn’t just there for titillation. That The Whistleblower is based on actual events makes this as terrifying as any horror movie hitting the October release schedule.

REASONS TO GO: A terrifying view at a subject rarely tackled by films and never with this level of realism. Weisz, Redgrave, Strathairn and Kaas give raw performances.

REASONS TO STAY: Too many blanks left for the viewer to fill in. The cinematography is often murky.

FAMILY VALUES: There is violence, much of it of a sexual nature including one particularly brutal sexual assault. The language is rough as well and as you might expect, there’s plenty of nudity.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was mostly shot in Romania. Weisz had originally been approached to play the role in 2005 but turned it down due to her pregnancy. When she discovered the movie’s production had stalled, she accepted the role and consequently the movie was made.

HOME OR THEATER: I’d say see this in a theater; it might be easier to make out some of the images on a bigger screen.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: You Again