Fresh and Exciting

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

'The Keeper of Lost Causes' is neither the first nor the last crime drama you'll see featuring a bad-tempered, middle-aged cop nurturing personal suffering and who plays by nobody's rules but his own. But it loses additional points for its ridiculous villain, with his implausible motivations and his Dr. Evil-like plan to murder his victim, which predictably is foiled only at the final moment. The weird thing here is that the tone of the drama is down-to-earth, realistic, yet the crime is almost comically preposterous (and the story of how the hero uncovers the truth scarcely less so). It's definitely not the finest hour of "Scandi-Noir".

The plot of The Keeper of Lost causes unfolds slowly but every bit of it pulls you in. The case is as fascinating as the men investigating it, Carl Morck is brash, seems arrogant, and often rubs people the wrong way. He is hard to like but he quickly grows on you. His assistant Assad, whose the more laid back, smart kind of guy, of the two really is the Yin of Carl's Yang. They complement one another, it makes for an odd but interesting pair. The investigation is actually enigmatic and not as easy to figure out as a lot of the cases in crime thrillers are these days. Merete Lynggaard is a bit of an enigma herself, orphaned, workaholic, not very social, she lived for her brother, Uffe Lynggaard, so her lifestyle raises a lot of questions. As the investigation progresses, there are flashbacks of the victim, to see what happened at least just enough to keep you guessing on who did it and why.The Keeper of Lost causes is one hell of a good noir crime thriller, language barrier or not this movie is captivating. @wornoutspines

Scandinavian TV, film and literature has been a remarkable phenomenon over the past decade, with the wordwide success of 'The Killing', 'Let The Right One In' and 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. 'The Keeper of Lost Causes', based on an international bestseller written by Jussi Adler-Olsen, is a new Danish film in the same gritty noir crime thriller mould that many viewers have become accustomed to.Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays Carl Mørck, an arrogant and cantankerous homocide detective who nobody wants to work with even though he's good at his job. After a botched raid puts himself and his partner in hospital, Carl is demoted to a desk job handling old cases which were never resolved. Carl's job was to check each file and report on each case, but to never go beyond this remit. His life might be a mess, but Carl never played by the rules so why should he start now? He chooses a curious missing persons case which was tagged as a suicide. He's ably assisted by the far more optimistic Assad (Fares Fares), and thus begins a peculiarly Nordic bromance dead set on fighting crime.Director Mikkel Nørgaard spares no expense in showing us every crime thriller cliché available, saved not only by the two leads but the inventive means used by the captor for his victim. Far too many leaps of faith have to be taken to understand Carl's process of elimination, in what is a very straightforward thriller that lacks any real tension or plot twists. 'The Keeper of Lost Causes' often feels like a TV pilot, and the ending of the film surely means there is more to come. For anyone familiar with the Nordic Noir Wave with classic TV series such as 'The Killing', 'Wallander' and 'The Bridge', 'The Keeper of Lost Causes' will probably be a disappointment. For the rest, this film is a good introduction to a particular genre that the Scandinavians do so well.

If you like a cop thriller as much as I do, you are in the right place. I haven't read the book this is based on, but obviously and judging from what I saw in the movie, it must be good. There are more books (and it is obvious from the movie/story), so you might be getting even more from this (at least one other output is coming).The acting is really good (even if it feels a bit moody and broody at times) and the story is even better. There are more things here to judge than just some bad guys, with even the cop having his flaws (transparent from the beginning). We also get nice touches (the coffee thing) to elevate the watching experience. An all around good take on a criminal story