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How entertaining? ★☆☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 10 June 2014
This article is a review of THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES.
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“Have you figured out why you’re here?” Kidnapper
What a struggle to find an original idea in this staid Nordic cop thriller; from mismatched bickering partners to convenient plot revelations. Here’s a list:
- Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is a homicide detective, who doesn’t wait for more backup going into the opening crime scene. Botching covering themselves, all three cops are gunned down. One is killed, Carl’s best bud is paralysed, and the lead is put on medical leave. THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES is about a policeman coming to terms with a catastrophic error. (For a better example, see Joe Carnahan’s ace NARC.)
- After only three months off, Carl returns to work a pariah, and is assigned by annoyed boss Marcus Jacobson (Søren Pilmark) – yawn, see LAST ACTION HERO for the always-angry superior – to the newly created Ministry of Justice, “Department Q”. Essentially relegated to a clerical basement wasteland, Mørck’s job is to file the cold cases for the last 20 years. Not to reopen, but to organise and create a two-page report for each of the multitude. Isn’t there a Jerry Bruckheimer TV show called COLD CASE? It’s THE X-FILES without the aliens/monsters/supernatural.
What a struggle to find an original idea in this staid Nordic cop thriller; from mismatched bickering partners to convenient plot revelations. Here’s a list:
- Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is a homicide detective, who doesn’t wait for more backup going into the opening crime scene. Botching covering themselves, all three cops are gunned down. One is killed, Carl’s best bud is paralysed, and the lead is put on medical leave. THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES is about a policeman coming to terms with a catastrophic error. (For a better example, see Joe Carnahan’s ace NARC.)
- After only three months off, Carl returns to work a pariah, and is assigned by annoyed boss Marcus Jacobson (Søren Pilmark) – yawn, see LAST ACTION HERO for the always-angry superior – to the newly created Ministry of Justice, “Department Q”. Essentially relegated to a clerical basement wasteland, Mørck’s job is to file the cold cases for the last 20 years. Not to reopen, but to organise and create a two-page report for each of the multitude. Isn’t there a Jerry Bruckheimer TV show called COLD CASE? It’s THE X-FILES without the aliens/monsters/supernatural.
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- Caucasian Carl is teamed up with methodical Muslim cop Assad (Fares Fares). Natch, they are yin and yang. Have the makers not seen LETHAL WEAPON or THE LAST BOY SCOUT? For all Assad’s easy-going warmth, Carl is all pensive social awkwardness (see for similar personality traits THE KILLING, starring Sofie Gråbøl).
- Throwing the rulebook out of the window, as a maverick cop is want to do (see McBain in THE SIMPSONS), Mørck decides to re-investigate the supposed suicide of politician Merete Lynggaard (Sonja Richter). Through flashbacks we get to see what really happened: An unseen merciless kidnapper took Merete in front of her mentally disabled brother Uffe (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, who is unfortunately so terrible – did he or didn’t he take the advice of Robert Downey Jr.’s character in TROPIC THUNDER?).
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- Locked in a pressurised diving chamber for the previous five years, that level of hatred from the perpetrator reminds of the graphic novel A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, or Park Chan-wook’s OLDBOY. Reeking of an episode of C.S.I., THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES is sadism sans smarts. (Contrast SE7EN.)
- Digging up new half-a-decade old evidence, which somehow still exists, Carl and Assad hone in on new conclusions. Of course, they eventually get suspended by pen-pushing bureaucrat overseers, and the perfunctory throwing in their police badges is opted for. Seriously. Do they tow the party line? Give you one guess. (See Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Utah in POINT BREAK for the best chucking away of credentials.)
Disappointingly wooden direction from Mikkel Nørgaard, who helmed the hilarious KLOWN, and banal dialogue from one of the scriptwriters of the Swedish version of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, all in all, makes for a leaden experience.
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