Excellent adaptation of the book. Great casting. Please do more movies of the Department Q series!

Nearing the end of the magnificent second series of the Nordic Noir TV show Follow The Money,I started to read the Nordic Noir book Mercy (Department Q 1)by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Looking for more info on Olsen's work,I checked online,and found three Department Q adaptations. Deciding to not watch Mercy until I finished the book,I got set to meet the absent ones.The plot:At an office party,police officer Carl Mørck is approached by an old man who asks if Mørck's Department Q has look into the cold case related to the death of his children. Feeling uneasy round him, Mørck gets the guy thrown out. Later that night, Mørck learns that the man has killed himself. Regretting his words, Mørck and fellow officer Assad open the files on the dead man's twins,and discover a murderous class from twenty years ago, who are now in the top class of society.View on the film:Going back and forth over 20 years, the screenplay by Nikolaj Arcel & Rasmus Heisterberg gaze upon the "murderous boarding school" sub- section of the Giallo genre,where the students are taught a vicious Noir arrogance that is left to fester for 20 years. Along with the school antics giving their Jussi Adler-Olsen adaptation a visceral edge,the writers strike the present with a deep Nordic Noir pessimism,as Mørck and Assad's investigation leads to an intense unlocking of the business elite (a major theme of the genre) ) that sets alight a superb,grim final page for Department Q.Looking towards the Giallo,director Mikkel Nørgaard & cinematographer Eric Kress take advantage of the school setting for a slice of sleaze,via the fading gold colours of the flashbacks being torn with naked girls,masked thugs and deep red blood being rubbed on the screen. Limiting any bright lights to the past, Nørgaard makes the teams investigation one that smashes the pristine glass world of the killers,to expose the moulding blacks and greens under the surface. Years before putting on the mild-manner business glasses of Simon in Follow the Money,David Dencik gives a wonderful, uncomfortably meek performance as Ulrik Dybbøl,whilst Sarah-Sofie Boussnina gives an excellent,ticking time bomb performance as Kimmie. Attemping to learn what took place 20 years ago, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fars Fares give great,burnt-out,Nordic Noir loner performances as Mørck and Assad,who both meet the chosen ones.

THE ABSENT ONE is the second in the trilogy of DEPARTMENT Q films, Danish crime dramas based on novels. This Scandi-noir offering has all you'd expect from this particular genre: dark visuals, a gritty plot, a sinister back story that impinges on the present day, and some scruffy, downbeat detectives who refuse to give up the case no matter what.This film features an extensive back story involving a group of public school teenagers who get up to some dark deeds in the 1990s. It's hard-hitting and explicit stuff indeed, and the present-day storyline is just as intensive. These DEPARTMENT Q films benefit from strong production values, solid writing, good acting, and a general air of quality that makes them ones to watch for fans of the genre.

Mystery thriller from Denmark like there should be more. The movie has everything you need to make a good Film Noir. A well chosen cast with good actors, a story line that doesn't reveal everything at once with intriguing plots, a dark ambiance. Those are the movies that I usually remember because you can remember every detail because you paid attention to the captivating story. Unlike other movies that you forget everything about after a couple days. I didn't know any of the actors and they are probably just known in their country but you really can't fail any of them because they did an excellent job. I already saw a couple really good movies from Denmark and this is one of them.