Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013)

The entire Department Q trilogy was on a list of favorite Netflix screening options. I took care to start with the first, not The Absent One (2014) or A Conspiracy of Faith (2016). They all have similar IMDb scores. Perhaps I should have noted that their Rotten Tomatoes scores get progressively much higher.

Somewhere in Denmark, impulsive policeman Carl has botched a raid, leaving his partners out of commission and himself needing months of recovery. Afterward, no one else on the force wants to work with him, so the chief invents a Department Q, populated by Carl and assistant Assad, for sorting files of closed cases. But before long, Carl gets suspicious about a woman's reported suicide: Why do that on a cruise with her heavily brain-damaged brother? He and Assad investigate further, taking a trip to Sweden, despite the chief's consternation. As you've no doubt predicted, they're right.

I must say, Scandinavian entertainment is awfully dark on the whole. This piece is, in some ways, right up there with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Never mind the raid misfire or the accident that rendered the brother barely communicative; the villain is a total monster of overdone vengeance. Not since Oldboy and The Kite Runner have I been so eager for cinematic justice. (Hmm, maybe this is more broadly a pattern of non-American films -- at least the ones that gain U.S. attention.)

Leave it to the non-native character to provide a slight antidote for the darkness. Carl, having personal problems beyond a perceived demotion, never smiles. Next to him, Assad is quite the optimist. (It helps that he used to have a worse job, probably due to immigrant status.) He seems to have more personality as well. I rather liked him the moment he was introduced, blaring rock music but perfectly willing to turn it off. As usual for buddy cop flicks, much of the interest lies in watching the two bounce off each other.

Thinking of genre, I should note that the audience gets privy to more info than the heroes do. There are plenty of flashbacks and "meanwhile" scenes. We don't know the whole story up front, but it still comes pretty close to a Columbo style, albeit without nearly as impressive detective work. More a police procedural, which never did as much for me as bigger mysteries.

BTW: Without giving too much away, I find it odd that the authorities had declared a suicide without finding the body or any eyewitnesses to the event itself. This oversight did not come up in the dialog, so the realization sure jarred me.

When I described the movie to a co-worker, he got interested in checking it out. Me, I've removed the sequels from my list. It's not badly done; I just don't feel like delving into that world again.