{"id":7126,"date":"2013-10-12T14:30:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T18:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7126"},"modified":"2013-10-12T14:30:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T18:30:44","slug":"dvd-those-who-kill-dem-som-draeber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7126","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Those Who Kill \/ Dem som draeber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>T to U<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Weak \/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: Misofilm\/ Region: 2 (PAL) \/\u00a0Released: 2011<\/p>\n

Genre: Television \/ Crime \/ Serial Killer<\/p>\n

Synopsis: An elite team of Danish detectives track down and apprehend nasty serial killers.<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Amid the high quality crime series from Denmark – those created by writers determined to give the genre a new spin with unusual focal points – there are inevitably more generic efforts which seek to repackage elements from the familiar and the unusual.<\/p>\n

The best way to describe Those Who Kill <\/strong>\/ Dem som draeber<\/strong> is a fairly by-the-book CSI<\/strong> riff that stylistically and narratively is at least 10 years out of date \u2013 at least in the first two installments. A Danish \/ Norwegian \/ Swedish \/ German co-production, the pilot could be seen as a dreadful compromise where the writers seemed to be forced to start with a bang by going through every tired and aged clich\u00e9 in the police procedural serial killer genre, with scenes trimmed so severely there\u2019s virtually zero character growth.<\/p>\n

The core characters are Katrine (striking modelesque Laura Bach), a tough beauty whose head-butting with her boss is tolerated because she\u2019s so damn good; her boss Magnus (utterly wasted Lars Mikkelsen), generally grumpy and confined to short scenes at his desk or standing in strategy rooms; Thomas (Jakob Cedergren), the brilliant criminal psychologist \/ behavioral scientist lured from his teaching post back to grisly field work; Katrina\u2019s colleague Stig (Frederik Meldal Norgarrd), who has no character arc whatsoever and fills in the investigative chores whenever the writers need a third man on the case; and forensics expert Mia (Laerke Winther Andersen, sporting the worst haircut in the Eurozone), who\u2019s great at her job, a friend to Katrina, and is apparently the single parent of a daughter we see only in the pilot.<\/p>\n

The series was conceived as a five TV movies split into separate broadcast episodes, and what\u2019s unfortunate is it took 3 episodes for the writers to figure out their characters and begin to stitch together more intriguing plots, but unfortunately neither the last teleplay nor the final effort, a feature film, were enough to save the series from disinterest and cancellation. Had the show begun with the feature film, it may have had a chance, but half of the stories are typically contrived storylines where the team tracks down a serial killer and catches him before there\u2019s one too many victims.<\/p>\n

In the pilot (Liget I skoven<\/strong>), Katrina is snatched by the killer with a somewhat pharaoh-esque fetish who notes scars on her arm that are part of some childhood sexual abuse that\u2019s never dealt with nor inferred again after the second teleplay. Thomas does something rather interesting when he finds Katrina in a makeshift sarcophagus, but aside from an angry exchange, the incident has no lingering effect on their inevitable friendship.<\/p>\n

The second teleplay (Utopia<\/strong>) has Katrina still a little stressed out from her near-death experience, but she\u2019s able to focus and support Thomas, who\u2019s marriage is crumbling in a strangely non-argumentative, almost placid way. Their goal is to stop a loner from killing adults and children when his goal to appoint himself as the head of the perfect family unit falls short yet again. David Dencik is great as the timid monster, but the story feels like a riff on Manhunter<\/strong> (1986), right down to the modern architecture used for the upscale locations.<\/p>\n

Ondt blod<\/strong> features some really intriguing plot elements \u2013 a serial killer actively working inside a men\u2019s prison \u2013 plus there\u2019s a link between Thomas and the inmate\u2019s leader, slimy \/ brilliant Martin (The Thing<\/strong>\u2019s Ulrich Thomsen, stealing every scene he\u2019s in with just a grimace) \u2013 but it\u2019s also padded with filler scenes which take away from a story that could\u2019ve been told in under an hour. There\u2019s great atmosphere within the teleplay and several strong performances, and like the prior teleplay, there\u2019s edgy imagery and scenes which would not be so graphic on a standard American network series, especially the misogynistic language and Katrine (once again) being put in graphic harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

Oje for oje<\/strong> puts Thomas up front as he goes undercover to solve a serial killer actively knocking off members of a local mafia clan, while his marriage is now in complete tatters. It\u2019s also the rare moment where Mia gets a bit more screen time, since it\u2019s her old flame who\u2019s killed in the first quarter. Kim Bodnia is excellent as the Mafioso who engages Thomas as his son\u2019s driver \/ guardian, and there are blatant shades of Man on Fire<\/strong> (1987) within the episode. While the killer graphically abuses a child in one unsettling scene, the episode borders on quaintness, since the writers maintain parallel character arcs where two fathers ultimately find some civil common ground for the benefit of their sons.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s unique about Those Who Kill<\/strong> is the allowed time jumps between teleplays, which permits sudden changes in relationships, and Thomas\u2019 relationship with ex-wife Benedicte comes back to life in Dodens kabala<\/strong>. The flipside is Katrina\u2019s fling with a suave insurance salesman, whom we all know early into the teleplay is the brutal killer responsible for choking and meticulously dismembering specific women. There\u2019s logic to the killer actively courting a member of the investigating police force, but like most banal crime series, the trauma from betrayal and near-death (yet again) never seems to affect characters in subsequent storylines.<\/p>\n

In The Killing <\/strong>(from which a HUGE contingent of the guest cast members were drawn), every character in Seasons 1<\/a> [M<\/a>] and 3<\/a> [M<\/a>] is further numbed by whatever physical and emotional trauma\u2019s occurred, but in a generic American network show with a full season order of episodes, the characters have to be reset for the next preposterous adventure, allowing for a token \u2018relapse\u2019 episode to maintain a semblance of continuity. (The relapse usually involves the appearance of a previously convicted \/ thought dead \/ copycat \/ revenge killer who taunts and torments a key member of the investigative team before he \/ she is sent to oblivion.)<\/p>\n

Alexandre Willaume is excellent as the smooth talking killer, and the production uses some super locations, including a giant trash sorting plant, and several derelict buildings and yards. There\u2019s nothing new in the story, but there is a solid mood of dread which somewhat transcends the easy plot twists even middling mystery fans will see quite a bit before they occur.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s last adventure is somewhat reminiscent of the grim finale to The Killing: Season 3,<\/strong> insofar as it ensures any effort to resuscitate the series will be a major uphill battle for the writers. (It is possible, but while that seems to be a lost opportunity, Elsebeth Egholm and Stefan Jaworski\u2019s series concept is slated to be remade by Joe Carnahan as TV pilot with Chloe Sevigny.)<\/p>\n

In the feature film, subtitled Shadow of the Past<\/strong> \/ Fortidens skygge<\/strong>, a former patient prematurely certified as sane by Thomas (see the relapse pattern?) has been released and is staging horrific deaths as scribbled down in crude pencil and ink drawings. A plus in this beautifully shot yet merely above-average TV movie is the mounting dread where one character\u2019s optimism and renewed chance at a normal life is clearly going to be wiped out by the end in a finale that riffs a pivotal scene from Blown Away<\/strong> (1994). It\u2019s a good appropriation, but like most of the episodes in this short-run series, a few hours later, the stories tend to blend into each other, and there\u2019s little affection for the generic characters.<\/p>\n

Those Who Kill<\/strong> is a slick production, but in trying to stay close to more commercial (read: American) serial killer templates, there are few original ideas in what could\u2019ve been another memorable, grim Danish import.<\/p>\n

At present, the series and lone feature film<\/a> have been released on video in parts of Europe (Scandinavian countries, Germany, and Hungary) and Asia.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2013 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Vendor Search Links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" \"\"—New movie releases on iTunes<\/a>\"\"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0T to U<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ T to U . Film: Weak \/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: Misofilm\/ Region: 2 (PAL) \/\u00a0Released: 2011 Genre: Television \/ Crime \/ Serial Killer Synopsis: An elite team of Danish detectives track down and apprehend nasty serial killers. Special Features: \u00a0n\/a . . Review: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[2265,1572,2267,1574,2266,2264],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1QW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7126"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7135,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7126\/revisions\/7135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}