The Hundred Code

I was not going to write a review but seeing some bad ones I have to add mine. This series is only second best to Broen, which is forever top1, especially the 3rd series. The atmosphere, the faded, dark colors and Ms Helin are just The Best.

Here, the Swedish actors are - again - very good, unlike the American guy who tells his lines like he was reading them. But that's nothing new, most of the time American "B" actors sound better, dubbed by a real actor of the language the film is dubbed in. Anyway, the series start relatively slow, but it picks up amazingly around ep5 and concludes.... wow. The script, how the tension is built up, how you start worrying for some characters although you may not like them make it a must watch.

The first half hour of the first episode was just a succession of clichés and I was about to turn it off then something happened and it started to get better. By the end of the second episode I was beginning to enjoy it and by the end of the third I was waiting for the next episode or should I say I am waiting for the forth because here in France it all started last night.

I love seeing Stockholm and the countryside a nice change!! So I do recommend this series for anyone who enjoys horrible people killing in horrific ways.

As a jogger it makes you think when you get ready to go out in the morning!

Last decade has seen dozens of really magnificent and novel creations in the field of crime thrillers, without a single case per episode, but a recurrent case/topic with multiple twists and turns. 100 Code is another fine example of them, well, not up to Bron/Broen or Millennium, but still a thrilling series to follow. The inclusion of an American, wideness of the case and the parallel or subsequent use of both English and Swedish (most Swedes are very good at English) move the events beyond "provincial" mood and environment characteristic to Scandinavian crime from time to time. Nevertheless, the viewers obtain a decent overview of Swedish habits, concepts and nature, plus how all this is perceived by a foreign official.

As for performances, I am surprised that some viewers have found them poor; I find them realistic, as catching offenders is neither constant chases in fancy cars and clothing nor issuing witty remarks at each other, it is a hard and crushing job at the expense of family and friends. In my opinion, all the cast is doing well, yet Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Eklund and Dominic Monaghan as Tommy Conley spend more time on screen.

All in all, a good series, and the very ending was pleasantly tricky. If you like intensive series where crimes are dealt with in a team, then the one in question is definitely for you as well.

Just binge watched the entire series because it IS that addictive.

Dominic Monaghan does a pretty good impersonation of a haunted Irish/New York cop who buddies with Sweden's Michael Nyqvist in a very compelling, if somewhat typical, Nordic serial killer hunt.

I'm a sucker for the genre, I read every thing I can get my hands on and this series is far from disappointing. Surprisingly, to me at least, I have never heard of the author who's novels this series is based on.

The gimmick of pulling a NYPD detective into the mix gives the producers the leeway to have a lot of the dialogue in English making the series far more accessible to the linguistically challenged among us viewers.

It has all the tropes we fans of the genre love. Plenty of action, developed character arcs and good old detection.

Highly recommended.

The "American character" is the main reason I tried this show. Dominic Monaghan is always delightful. If you don't know, he is a Brit. And he is doing a decent job with the NY accent and attitude. His portrayal of a "tough New York cop" is the humor of the show, which is needed in a show like this or it can be terribly dismal. If you have met any guys from New York, this is their general outlook- they are tough because they are from New York, no matter how small they are. I love it. They even bring up the Red Sox vs. Yankees rivalry, which is such a big part of being from Boston (my neck of the woods). The other attitudes about their sports, opinion of guns, so forth, are authentic inside jokes. So I think the nuances of the American character are just lost on an European audience, but a complete delight to us, especially if you realize that the tough New York cop is a hobbit!! So from the sounds of the review from the European viewpoint, it works for both. Watch it!