Review by l_rawjalaurence

Taking its title from Shakespeare's play (although the relevance to the story escapes me), A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM is a complicated tale involving the pursuit of a Polish heavy (Andrzej Chyra) who has been associated with a series of murders of other Polish immigrants. However the story isn't as straightforward as it first seems ...

This Swedish detective series contains some formulaic elements. The central character Arne Dahl (Malin Arvidsson) is a divorced single parent looking for love but failing to find it. In her team of crack officers there is the obligatory heavy (Magnus Samuelsson) with a penchant for black humor; the silver-haired lawyer who solves cases through intellectual rather than physical means (Niklas Åkerfelt); and the maverick cop going off the rails but redeemed through his aptitude for the job (Alexander Salzberger). Oh, and we must not forget the rookie who turns out to be a little big for her boots, initially skeptically received by her fellow-officers but eventually proving herself through sheer, if rather foolhardy bravery (Natalie Minnevik).

Trygve Allister Diesen's production remains resolutely low-key throughout; shot in dark colors in claustrophobic interiors, it portrays Stockholm and other Swedish cities as crime-ridden and full of menace. No one, it seems, is immune from corruption.