I think the secret to Nordic noir was that Stieg Larrson was good and dead. Everyone could take what they needed from him, commodify it, and strip out the anti-Nazi politics/anti-misogyny politics, or dumb them down to a level where they're non-threatening for mainstream audiences.
This shit ruled. Does such a good job of conveying how alien the middle ages must have been. A time when hunger was rampant, innovation existed only in the field of torture, people spent their nights listening to jethro tull and debating marxism, there was only one bath a year and you had to watch your lord take it, you could ride your horse in that illegal w pattern that makes them trip because there's no peta...
No but seriously…
The first half was generic cop shit. Some beautiful shots of Marseilles and some decent action sequences, though the people who live in the projects are completely dehumanized. I can stomach a bit of copaganda now and again but the second half went into self-pitying overdrive when the trio of cop heroes get thrown into jail for playing by their own set of rules. Eventually they get out by throwing their female informant/love interest under the bus, presumably to live…
