I'll start at the top admitting I like my detective dramas to be dark, gripping, intelligent and firmly grounded in reality, however bizarre the crime story being told. I don't want superheroes in suits, impervious to beatings and bullets; I don't want ridiculously convoluted mysteries solved by unbelievable coincidence or unearned insights; I don't want villains who are Evil with a capital E, devoid of believable psychology, or even humanity - however twisted their actions might prove. So I am happy to have found the Department Q series! Much better than the majority of Hollywood detective dramas, these are somber, dark, gritty affairs, which are entirely believable without sacrificing suspense or bizarre, original crimes. Particularly in this first entry, they even go out of their way to portray a heinous, sadistic individual (imagine planning to slowly torture a victim for years!) who we are then made to understand, and even sympathize with, in a key sequence that is heartbreaking. You then watch this person for the remainder of the film without the comfortable distancing of a cartoon "Monster". Here the common, almost clichéd, character of the hard drinking "rogue cop" who is so obsessed and dedicated - however brilliant - no one wants to partner with him is treated realistically; those conditions are a result of a flawed personality, not some conceits assigned to an otherwise "likable" character who is usually also charming and funny and simply misunderstood by the two dimensional people around him. But the best characters can be interesting and involving while at the same time being frustrating and easy to dislike if the filmmakers have the courage to present a dimensional human being. And the characters here are three-dimensional. I highly recommend this film unless you're uncomfortable thinking that bad guys are humans too, that delving into the dark exacts a toll and all damaged cops don't smirk and crack one-liners like Bruce Willis selling out.

It disturbs me to often find I'm not a targeted viewer for many contemporary films and gain little for the time I invest in them. But then I'm not easy to satisfy. I'm a critical viewer. Perhaps it is unlikely that one can truly engage with a thriller and remain a critical viewer? But it has not always been this way. The 'suspension of disbelief', an absolute requirement in any fiction, that allows us to follow the story rather than see actors acting roles, is what makes thrillers thrilling. And some are truly that, at least on their first viewing. However in these times directors seem to have largely abandoned the need to raise, at least, my heartbeat and "The Keeper of Lost Causes" is a perfect example of that genre. Scandinavian 'noir' has gone very grey and formulaic. I thoroughly engaged with the original "Pusher" but that was in 1996 and Danish directors have grown old and rich from their early successes and rarely keep their form, and genres themselves degenerate. I recently watched "Farewell, My Lovely" from 1975, itself a jaded copy of an original noir and "The Keeper of Lost Causes" has much similarity. A cold case, an isolated detective down on his luck and lottery winning coincidences which are central to the rather basic narrative. Both are technically well made but hardly thrilling and have been created hot, or growing colder by the year, on the financial trail of better offerings. "Chinatown" (1974) and all the earlier modern Scandinavian crime back to "Smilla's Sense of Snow" in 1997. Watch it and criticise. Then look into the archive and experience some real, "old fashioned", film noir. But even then there was good and bad. It's about being a critical viewer.

I've watched this movie now because I'm scheduling a thematic channel.It is a phenomenon. The detective literature and films from the Nordic countries boom. Not only from Larsson but since the Henning Mankell's inimitable Inspector Walander. And always with its trademark: an undercurrent of social criticism.The Q department is a very good idea that will gives us good detective stories to fans of the genre. Some clichés tarnish the story: the strongly different pair of cops, the detective alone and tormented, the chiefs are always fools ... But the plot is smoother, enough to enjoy.I look forward to the next chapter: Fasandraeberne.

Scandinavian TV, film and literature has been a remarkable phenomenon over the past decade, with the wordwide success of 'The Killing', 'Let The Right One In' and 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. 'The Keeper of Lost Causes', based on an international bestseller written by Jussi Adler-Olsen, is a new Danish film in the same gritty noir crime thriller mould that many viewers have become accustomed to.Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays Carl Mørck, an arrogant and cantankerous homocide detective who nobody wants to work with even though he's good at his job. After a botched raid puts himself and his partner in hospital, Carl is demoted to a desk job handling old cases which were never resolved. Carl's job was to check each file and report on each case, but to never go beyond this remit. His life might be a mess, but Carl never played by the rules so why should he start now? He chooses a curious missing persons case which was tagged as a suicide. He's ably assisted by the far more optimistic Assad (Fares Fares), and thus begins a peculiarly Nordic bromance dead set on fighting crime.Director Mikkel Nørgaard spares no expense in showing us every crime thriller cliché available, saved not only by the two leads but the inventive means used by the captor for his victim. Far too many leaps of faith have to be taken to understand Carl's process of elimination, in what is a very straightforward thriller that lacks any real tension or plot twists. 'The Keeper of Lost Causes' often feels like a TV pilot, and the ending of the film surely means there is more to come. For anyone familiar with the Nordic Noir Wave with classic TV series such as 'The Killing', 'Wallander' and 'The Bridge', 'The Keeper of Lost Causes' will probably be a disappointment. For the rest, this film is a good introduction to a particular genre that the Scandinavians do so well.