Jakten på en mördare

For such an understated production this drama had me absorbed by every episode. The whole feel and look was from the time the drama was set (1989-2004) and the unfamiliar ensemble added to to the authenticity. There are no subplots, it is just police work, illustrating the difficulty and frustrations of the job. The seedy side of life and the way some people live was cleverly filmed by getting the point across without having to be too graphic. It is all the better for being based on real events, so there are no plot holes and inconsistencies that seem to be prevalent in dramas these days.

Realistic. A bit depressing, but well done. In Sweden (Ep.3, 17 min mark), 2 detectives chasing predators visit an elderly male counsellor. He shows them 3 normal looking male 'patients'. All are serious offenders-all 3 want to stop. 'They can't stop', says the counsellor gloomily.

Eventually (years later) DNA technology catches up to the correct predator. Scary. Not a cheery Hollywood style or ending. Great for true crime buffs.

I am not one to give a 10 . But it cannot be anything less. All actors are good, no, great. And It's just the way it was at the time. Scary to see all the incompetence within the police, and the envy of those good cops from the mediocre. All the ridicolus blue tape. I guess it was about this time Swedish police startet going downhill. Today they solve 10% of murders. Against 90% in the neighbouring countries.

It's very scary, because it could happen to me. In my house.

In Sweden, the horrific muder of a young girl in the 1980s took almost 20 years to solve. Other murders (just one of which proved to be linked) and departmental politics obstructred progress; but one thing that 'The Hunt of a Killer', a dramatisation of the police investigation, shows is just how difficult it can be to find the evidence needed to close a case. It's an unmelodramatic reconstruction, and in many ways a depressing one: the killer was a lone actor and societal misfit, whose behaviour was alarming in many respects but which went unchecked while his darkest deeds remained hidden. As at a least a semi-normal person, it's horrifying to see what human beings are capable of if allowed to go far enough wrong.

Melancholic & methodical. Slow & non-spectacular. The objective, slow-panning camera tells the bleak True Crime-story masterfully.