Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes

Jussi Adler-Olsen is a publishing professional who made good. In previous lives, the bestselling crime novelist had worked as a proofreader, bookseller, printer, editor, and managing director of a publishing house, but his international fame rests on the Department Q franchise. It is literally a basement office devoted closing cold cases. Carl Mørck was supposed to just sign off on the previous inquiry, in what was intended as a bureaucrat assignment, but that is not how he rolls. Instead, he will reopen investigations, showing up his resentful colleagues. He is not politically savvy, but Mørck and his assistant are the only hope left for a kidnapping victim in Mikkel Nørgaard’s Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes (trailer here), which opens with the entire Danish crime trilogy this Friday at the IFC Center.

Mørck was never popular on the force, but when his decision to enter a crime scene before back-up arrived led to the death of one officer and the paralysis of another, he is shunned like Bill de Blasio. Of course, Mørck’s guilty conscience will be far worse punishment than his colleague’s silent treatment. Department Q was a way to sweep Mørck under the rug. Good luck with that.

Hafez al-Assad considers Department Q a step up from the motor pool, at least until he meets Mørck. However, when he lays out the first batch of cases files, the presumptive suicide of Merete Lynggard catches the anti-social cop’s eye. Supposedly, the up-and-coming local politician committed suicide on the ferry, leaving her developmentally disabled brother unattended (permanently), but Mørck never believed it, for obvious reasons. Aside from hardly seeming suicidal, her body was never recovered.

If Denmark is so cavalier when it misplaces its politicians, it might be time to consider moving there. Nonetheless, the cold case is not much of a mystery, but it is an increasingly intense ticking-clock thriller. Nørgaard quickly reveals Lynggard has been held captive for the last five years in a pressure chamber. During that time, her captor has slowly increased the pressure. He will soon reach the absolute limits of human endurance, so Mørck had better get his act together.

You can’t possibly ask for any more angsty brooding than that delivered by Nikolaj Lie Kaas. Even by the Scandinavian standards set by Kurt Wallander, he is quite the self-defeating basket case, but he develops some engagingly dysfunctional chemistry with Fares Fares’ Assad. Sonja Richter is also terrific as Lynggard’s whose flashback sequences fortunately involve more than the pressure chamber torment.

Structurally, the first installment of the Department Q trilogy is a pretty standard procedural, but the pressure chamber is an especially nasty plot device and Mørck is an exceptionally depressive protagonist. It is a solid policier, but the trilogy actually improves with each film. Recommended as the start of a binge series, all three Department Q films open this Friday (6/17) in New York, at the IFC Center (with separate admissions).

Department Q: The Absent One

If a politician on the rise can go missing in Denmark without much fuss, consider how easy it is for a troubled teen to disappear. She came from money to, but found herself stuck with an antagonistic stepmother. That led to boarding school, where anything can happen, including murder. Her case comes to Carl Mørck through a particularly tragic set of circumstances, but that guarantees he will see it through to the bitter end of Mikkel Nørgaard’s The Absent One (trailer here), which opens as part of the entire Danish crime trilogy this Friday at the IFC Center.

Technically, this is not a cold case, but Mørck is not inclined to care. A distraught former copper committed suicide after unsuccessfully entreating Mørck to reopen the investigation of his murdered twin daughters. Even more guilt-ridden than usual, Mørck starts perusing his disordered files, finding plenty of suspicious stuff. The incident in question turns out to be one of several that took place near a tony boarding school—always on Sunday nights, the entitled pupils’ only day of rest. Gallingly, the townie who took the fall received a suspiciously light sentence and has since prospered. Connecting the dots, Mørck and Assad soon focus on the hotel heir Ditlev Pram and his privileged bestie, Ulrik Dybbøl.

Pram’s former girlfriend Kimmie Lassen could surely shine some light on their activities, but she has gone off the grid. Emotionally damaged by her experiences with Pram, Lassen tries to live an anonymous existence as one of the faceless homeless. Unfortunately, Pram will send his fixer to find for her, when his highly placed police contacts inform him of Mørck’s investigation.

One of the great weaknesses of Keeper is its villain, who turns out to be rather bland when we finally meet him. Absent One partly rectifies that, casting two of Denmark’s most recognizable actors, Pilou Asbæk (A Hijacking) and David Dencik (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) as Pram and Dybbøl, respectively. They are pretty odious. Kaas and Fares continue to build a reasonably credible odd couple rapport together, while Johanne Louise Schmidt adds a humanizing touch as their lucky new assistant Rose.

Again, Absent One is more thrillerish than mysterious, but somehow Nørgaard manages to take it to an even darker place, which is jolly impressive. Even though it is longer, it also feels tighter. Altogether quite compelling, The Absent is recommended in its own right and as part of a binge-watch when the entire Department Q trilogy opens this Friday (6/17) in New York, at the IFC Center (with separate admissions).

Department Q: A Conspiracy of Faith

Scandinavia is known for its Calvinist piety and sexual permissiveness. It is the former that offends a particularly nasty serial killer. His murders are designed to take faith as well as lives. Carl Mørck lost his faith long ago and he doesn’t have much of a life, so he might be the perfectly flawed cop to stop the cruel predator in Hans Petter Moland’s A Question of Faith (trailer here), which opens as part of the entire Danish crime trilogy this Friday at the IFC Center.

Technically, the discovery of a kidnapping victim’s SOS in a bottle washed up on shore is not a cold case either, but everyone on the force recognizes it requires the sort of obsessive futility only Mørck can deliver. Unfortunately, he is only a shadow of his normally gaunt self. He has yet to bounce back from the tragic events of The Absent One, despite Assad’s best motivational efforts. Nonetheless, the Department Q coppers start following up, discovering the writer of the note is mostly likely a missing boy from a vaguely defined fundamentalist community.

They are ordinarily not inclined to talk to cops—a prejudice that works in favor of the kidnapper-murderer. Yet, through some dogged police work Mørck and Assad soon uncover his pattern. After months of ingratiating himself with the community and family, Johannes kidnaps two siblings, puts the family through the ransom-paying ordeal, only then forcing them to make a Sophie’s Choice. Inevitably, his crimes leave the parents bereft of faith, as well as a child.

When it comes to faith, the atheist Mørck is much closer to Johannes (a self-identifying Satanist) than the Muslim Assad. However, when the Department Q team starts closing in on the killer, Johannes decides to test the faith he mistakenly assumes Mørck holds.

Faith is by far the best of the Department Q trilogy and one of the best of the bumper crop of Scandinavia thrillers, easily surpassing the heavyweight champion Millennium (Girl Who) series. In this case, calling up Moland, who helmed the nifty, twisty In Order of Disappearance, pays considerable dividends. Faith is the tightest and tensest of the trilogy, but also the smartest and most mature. It deals with the issue of faith in the face of tribulations in a respectful manner. Frankly, this is a film the Evangelical community should embrace, because it clearly rejects the nihilism of Johannes.

For genre fans, the Christian-hating Johannes is also the massively evil villain the franchise has been waiting for. Pål Sverre Hagen (Thor Heyerdahl in Kon-Tiki and the archaeologist father in Ragnarok) plays spectacularly against time as the viciously calculating serial killer. He makes the audience pine for Biblical retribution. Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares continue to play off each other well, while Johanne Louise Schmidt and Søren Pilmark nicely flesh out the greater police force, as Rose, the Department Q assistant, and their captain, Jacobsen.

Faith pushes Mørck to even lower existential depths, but it pays off viewer investment in both the constituent film and the entire trilogy quite handsomely. For those who must prioritize their time, it should stand alone well enough and definitely represents the series high point. Enthusiastically recommended, Department Q: A Conspiracy of Faith opens this Friday (6/17) in New York, at the IFC Center, along with The Absent One and Keeper of Lost Causes (separate admissions).