Erlösung

When I went to see the film The Keeper of Lost Causes, I loved the movie so much that when I discovered it was one in a trilogy called Department Q, I had to see the others. I saw the second of the movies, The Absent One and was as impressed with it as the first. Now I'm up to A Conspiracy of Faith and I'm Definitely impress with the trilogy as a whole, but must confess, this is the weakest out of them all.

In A Conspiracy of Faith, police detective Carl ls burnt out and needs some resurgence that his job is worth it as he works the cold case Department Q. This comes at a bad time when Department Q catches the case of a 3 year old murder, and discover the killer is not done killing.

The movie takes a certain turn away form the other two. The case is not as complex, it's more right in your face, which allows for more action. It's the type of format I would expect from the second movie not the third.

On it's own A Conspiracy of Faith is a suspenseful action thriller, that's straight up protagonist vs. antagonist with a lot of dark themes and concepts that make for a remarkable film.

As part of the Department Q trilogy, it's new take on the crime drama series makes it fall into the third movie cruse.

This is the third, and so far the best, film from Jussi Adler-Olsen's crime novels about the Department Q. The first "Kvinden i buret"/"The Keeper of Lost Causes" (2013) I rated 7/10, and was quite disappointed about the much more convoluted "Fasandreberne"/"The absent one" (2014), which I voted 5/10. Then I'm happy to say that this is a big step back from the last film directed by Mikkel Nørgaard.

Acclaimed Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland has taken over, and made a much more serious and darker Nordic noir.

The film is about a serial killer, acting as a cult leader. He kidnaps two children and demands ransom. But before this the Departemnt Q gets a case with a eight year old strange message found in a bottle. This is the start of an intense hunt.

The acting is superb, and mix with religion makes it very interesting. The film is slightly let down by being a lower budget production, though just from being a classic. it's still a very dark crime thriller.

Carl Morck (played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is very depressed and heavy minded. He makes his best role so far here. There is also a very strong acting performance by Pål Sverre Hagen, which does another psychopath here, just as in Moland's incredible "In order of disappearance"/"Kraftidioten". Once again a memorable role.

A well recommended Nordic noir.

It might seem that there is a decline in the movies, but this is still rock solid. I can only imagine that the book is even more than that. It has characters from the previous movies (and books of course) and has a case that is pretty strong. You don't have the urgent feeling and the playfulness it had in the previous movies. As dark as they got, you always had something light in them.

That's almost missing entirely here. There's still character moments, but strings and things are being said and left on the sideline without giving them a resolution. It's a shame, but the movie is packed so much, that some things have not the punch they deserved to have and should have had. Still the movie and especially the villain are great. And it's not so much about who it is, but why he is and where and how to find him ...

This is the best chapter among the three, in my opinion. "Department Q" is a honest, low-flying franchise; it does few things, but does them very well. It's some kind of a very very good, 2-hours long tv episode. It keeps you hooked till the end (that's something very important in crime fiction), while entertaining you with good photography, good acting, and some tongue-in-cheek humor.

A special mention for the lead actor, that delivers an outstanding interpretation here, something worth of Hollywood in my opinion.

Recommended for a relaxing evening at home, it's fiction with no flaws. On a side note, some sequences in all three movies are violent or gory and can be disturbing to some.

This is the best of the three films in my opinion, it is not darker as such, off course the fact that its about kids getting taken is just not very nice to think about, but the cases they are working on are dark and we are beginning to know the characters and their different persona's and they really capture many great aspects of the characters and their interaction with other people.

I haven't read any of the books, but based on my wife's explanation, this is also the best adaption of the books, they are still changing things and making it more viewer friendly, but that's how it is.

Serial killers are always strange and dark, but this one is very well portrayed by Pål Sverre Hagen, he really seems like this nice guy, good looking (a Norwegian Ryan Gosling), well spoken, calm and trustworthy. But deep down he is just a bad bad man, with a terrible past and a twisted mind.

Location, seating & time: Dagmar, Nordisk Film, Vesterbro, Denmark - Bio 2, row 6 seat 1 & 3 - 22.03.2016 at 16.30