The Unlikely Murderer

Very interesting if a little annoying with all the jumping around between timeframes. An amazing story of gross incompetence by the Swedish police in contrast with the detectives in The Bridge and The Killing. Saga Noren would have solved it by episode 4 !!

Glad I watched it though as it's an amazing story and the acting was excellent by the main characters. I do hope the Swedes have tightened up on security in the light of these events.

Its more of a personal portrait than a thriller. A depressing portrait. The disastrous police investigation was mostly shown in the first parts of the series.

The hypothesis is not bad and Engström is clearly someone the police should have investigated further - but ignored. However...the explanations - the constant insinuations the creators have given Engström to enigmatically mumble from time to time - feels somewhat forced a lot of times. Every one of Engströms odd behaviors that is presented to the viewer and that tells you why he had the motivation and did the murderer, can easily just explain that he did and said all the contradictions just because he wanted some attention. Add the alcohol problems and the results will probably be confusing. It could have gone either way and we will never know.

To sum up - decent theory but not convincing.

I do appreciate that they at least informed viewers at the beginning of each episode that this crime is still unsolved. I also like how they captured the time-period: Things like clothing, cars, and architecture feels really true to the mid-1980s Sweden. Robert Gustafsson's performance is also really solid, even if the writing of his character (Engström) is not really in line with how most people in his close proximity described him in real life.

Now, I feel like I need be honest. You see, when it comes to the murder of Palme, I'm a bit of a nerd. I've gone through some of the material revolving the investigation and I've even read the book of which this series is based on. With that being said, I was quite shocked when I saw how poorly this series re-enacts the actual murder. For someone who is at least somewhat well-informed, there are fatal mistakes to be found everywhere. Several witnesses being placed in entirely wrong places, the murderer running on the opposite side of a street, the size of the weapon, plenty of accounts that are totally ignored. I can go on and on.

It is abundantly clear that the people who directed/filmed this didn't do their research and it begs the question; why would you try to present this as a credible and legitimate theory if you're not going to pay any attention to many of the most fundamental facts? Personally, I'm not a believer in the theory presented but I still liked the idea of being able to immerse yourself in it though a tv-series. But it turned out near impossible to take any of it seriously due to the sloppy execution...

4/10.

I was working in nearby Denmark when Palme was murdered. I'm not an expert at all but I have followed the news coverage of case then and all along.

I think the Swedish authorities and Swedish and general European press were caught up in the same kind of cognitive bias as occurred with Oswald, which was the core of fueling the conspiracy theories. To wit: How could Engstrom, this meaningless, pipsqueek, this nebbish, be the mover of such a large effect event? In the case of Oswald the evidence was so overwhelming. In the case of Engström the evidence was ignored because the press and much of the Swedish authorities were looking for a conspiracy. (It turns out to not be even poltical at all.) One would think the Nordic press would be staid and sober but the investigative journalists there were pumping every wild conspiracy theory including the absurd idea that the CIA was responsible. And the guy who was there, on the scene, had known access to handguns (rifles are/were common in Scandavian countries but pistols were NOT). He did not have an credible alibi. And he had a motive (a lifetime of insignificance and now being famous/hero).

I brought up Richard Jewel (falsely accused by FBI of 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing) , whom the US FBI destroyed, vilifying even after they knew he was innocent, because that was the opposite wing of the pendulum on the nebbish perpetrator. Jewel (like Engstrom) did have some inconsistences in his story, but those were from FBI high pressure, an unethical tactics with the problem ridden Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno wanting to close up the case without regard to doing it right. In that case FBI "profiling", which has failed countless times, including spectacularly during Unibomber, fit Jewel perfectly (and incorrectly) as a nebbish guy. Even though all the remaining evidence indicated he was innocent.

"The Unlikely Murderer" touches upon some of the most glaring screw-ups by the Swedish Authorities, but in my view does not do so nearly enough. This was a grand decades long sustained investigative cluster#&!k. Event the title is ironic, since, with the evidence Swedish authorities had within weeks of Palme's killing, it was clear that Engstom was NOT an "unlikely" assassin at all but quite likely

As a TV min-series I give this 5/10 as it is pretty mediocre and while critical, not nearly critical enough, of the Keystone cops running the successive investigations. Overall the pacing seems to contain a lot of filler and this could have been done in half the amount of screen time.

I am sure I will be marked as "unhelpful" by the conspiracy theorists still clinging to the disinformation spread by the KGB (and acknowledged as KGB generated nonsense by defectors), but there is no convincing of some people.

An interesting true crime story and a good job bringing it to life. The characters were well acted and the storyline flowed easily. Toward the end it gets a bit cluttered with multiple time lines being developed, but it works out.