Manslaughter

Cinematically, Per Fly's film contains all the elements of excellence accompanied by good performances rendered by the cast. Opening sequences signaled that the audience was on board for a good ride, unfortunately the ride ended all too soon. If this was not part of a trilogy I would have walked out after 30 minutes.

Scandinavian films are known for quiet story telling which I usually appreciate, but this is just badly paced. That low hum within the soundtrack must have been the sound of paint drying on what could have been a good picture. One would think that four screenwriters could deliver a compelling story-line, maybe therein lies a problem.

Considering the high quality of Fly's previous entries in the trilogy ("Bænken" & "Arven") he should have stopped at a duo or hired a objective Editor. Twenty minutes less running time may have provided a tightening and focus necessary to hold our attention. At least it would have made for a better paced film which may have found an international audience. Sadly, Drabet misses the mark of excellence by approximately half a kilometer of footage.

A teacher's activist mistress runs over and kills a police officer. The teacher leaves his wife to stand by his girlfriend. The focus in this one seemed off to me. The atmosphere is of a thriller or a noir, when instead the issues would have been brought out better without these elements (e.g., the lighting and the musical score). I also felt the plot was poorly developed. The girlfriend and the two men who were with her during the fateful night get off nearly scot-free because none of them confesses – and therefore they can't prove which one of them was the driver. Either the Danish legal system is the worst in the world or their detectives really suck, or, probably the true option, the screenwriters don't have a clue how these things actually work. (n.b. – according to one IMDb reviewer, the first option is the correct one!).

In this, the third installment in Per Fly's trilogy, again the familiar conservative themes of the primacy of family, and a moral imperative not to shirk responsibilities, yet not to harm others, come to the fore. In a scene reminiscent of shock-jock Jack in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King inciting a listener to murder, Carsten possibly instigates Pil's violent actions resulting in the murder of a policeman, the arrest of his young activist lover, the end of his marriage, and the start of some predictable but still interesting relationship developments and deepening moral questions. This reviewer did not find it drawn out, rather, the pace was about right.

YAWN YAWN YAWN! Ask any so called intellectual movie-critic, and he or she will say that this movie is oh so great. They will say that this movie deals with the dark side of man, with moral dilemmas! That might be true, but at the same time this movie has been seen many times before in Danish movies. Make up something new! Per Fly has been said to be a genius. Yeah well, if a genius is a person who can copy, then he is. The existential themes of this movie is not something new, Kierkegaard and the Sartre (just to mention a few) have written about this a long time ago. And what is up with Charlotte Fich! She is a Drama Queen in this movie. I understand the role she plays, I just don't believe in it. She overdoes it!

The film is a suffocatingly middle class take on class conflict. Very soppy and pettily bourgeois. Politics doesn't really exict, love triangles are the only thing that matters (smh).

The supposed radical activist crumbles at first signs of pressure and is depicted as some kind of edgy attention-seeking high school student, Effy-Stonem-is-into-politics-now, wow!

The most harrowing story is, apparently, one of an inconsolable widow of a cop, boo-hoo, MORE violins to the soundtrack!

And also, it looks like an old communist is not that different from a narrow-minded middle class policeman's wife because all he really cares about is clinging onto a woman, any woman. And if it doesn't happen he's fine with betraying his ideals and comrades.

The whole movie is one big facepalm. The ending credits music almost had me laughing cos' I recently rewatched a cult Spanish teen drama Three Steps Above Heaven and it ended with the exact same type of score - an indie pop song in English with some sOuLfUL female vocals. I mean, it's ridiculous! For a ~somewhat~ crime drama to have THAT as a soundtrack!

Anyway, you want to watch something Danish about political activists and their personal dilemmas, watch Blekingegade (The Left Wing Gang) instead. The story is based on true events, and although VERY similar in parts, it's told from a different angle, in a much more compelling way.