Bekännelsen

This is actually a tv mini series (3x1 hour), but I recorded it from tv and saw the series as a 3 hour movie instead, which was great since I don't think I would have been able to wait a whole day for the next episode to come on.

This is one of the best Swedish thriller series I have ever seen. The premise is not original (a man accidently kills another man and doesn't turn himself in, now the crime has to be covered up) but the execution is quite brilliant. It says something about a brilliant cast when such a fine actor as Göran Ragnerstam turns up in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role, almost a cameo. The same goes for the always brilliant Michael Nyqvist. The four leads, Magnus Krepper, Jonas Karlsson, Johanna Sällström and Ralph Carlsson are all brilliant, with Karlsson and Carlsson being the stand-outs.

The suspense in this film is psychological, and the most interesting aspects of the action is of course what's going on on the inside of the people who have to try to cover the murder up. It is interesting from the first frame to the last, and it's quite brilliant. (8/10)

I certainly wanted to know how (if) the murderer would be caught. And it was a murder, have no doubt about that.

None of the main characters, except the poor wife, is particularly appealing. The cops are incompetent or dishonourable, the murderer is a nasty sociopath and his sidekick is an amiable nincompoop. The one cop with any gumption is the female detective whose superior denigrates her at every turn.

The settings are so typically, rurally Swedish - I love them. I know Sweden and have lived in Finland including a Swedish-speaking part and the landscapes and village shops and facilities remind me so much of those time. It's absolutely authentic.

The series kept tension right up to the end. There is a sickening plot twist right before the ending that meant that the criminals might get away with their misdeeds. I'll leave it to viewers to see if they do or not.

At three hours, this was just right. More would have been over egging the plot. I don't regret having watched at all.