G. Allen Johnson May 12, 2021Updated: May 13, 2021, 12:36 pm
Anders Thomas Jensen’s Danish film “Riders of Justice” stars Lars Brygmann (left), Andrea Heick Gadeberg, Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro. Photo: Anders Overgaard, Magnet Releasing
Imagine a Liam Neeson revenge thriller with an early Coen brothers oddball vibe.
In Anders Thomas Jensen’s Danish film “Riders of Justice,” which is both action thriller and sensitive father-daughter drama, the incomparable Mads Mikkelsen is a soldier with a special set of skills who goes after the crime organization behind his wife’s killing.
Except, it’s not really
that kind of film. At its heart, it’s a darkly comic drama about a man trained to be a killing machine who must rediscover his own humanity before his daughter loses hers. Along the way, a family of quirky characters is formed.
The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the
COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as
Having previously delivered darkly satirical takes on cannibalism (2003’s “The Green Butchers”) and human genetic mutation (2016’s “Men & Chicken”) on which to hang his recurring themes of male bonding and extreme family dysfunction, Danish filmmaker Anders Thomas Jensen and his favorite leading man Mads Mikkelsen return with the deceptively generic “Riders of Justice.”
Mikkelsen, who also stars in “Another Round,” the recent Oscar winner for best international feature film, plays the stoical Markus, a recently deployed career soldier who abruptly returns home from Estonia to take down the biker gang believed to be responsible for an act of sabotage that resulted in the death of his wife.
Riders of Justice Review: Mads Mikkelsen Leads a Terrific Ensemble in This Brilliant Black Comedy
Riders of Justice Review: Mads Mikkelsen Leads a Terrific Ensemble in This Brilliant Black Comedy
A group of socially awkward oddballs and a grieving soldier exact revenge after a suspicious train accident in Riders of Justice.
Riders of Justice is an absolutely brilliant Danish film that cleverly crosses multiple genres. What begins as a revenge thriller turns into a wicked black comedy with a whole lot of heart. A superb ensemble cast, led by the always fantastic Mads Mikkelsen, will have you laughing out loud and cringing at the same time.
Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen.
Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Lars Brygmann, Nicolas Bro, Andrea Heick Gadeberg, Gustav Lindh, Roland Møller, Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt, Morten Suurballe, Jesper Ole Feit Andersen, Jacob Ulrik Lohmann, Rikke Louise Andersson, Gustav Dyekjær Giese, Henrik Noël Olesen, and Anne Birgitte Lind.
SYNOPSIS:
Markus, a deployed military man, has to go home to his teenage daughter, Mathilde, when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. It seems to be plain bad luck – but it turns out that it might have been a carefully orchestrated assassination, which his wife ended up being a random casualty of.
Advertisement
One of European comedy’s most reliable stock types is the dunderheaded academic, that erudite boob who knows so much about so much and yet hopelessly little about human nature. There’s not really an equivalent in the American cinema, but in parts abroad, this figure can be found getting his laughs (and they do always seem to be male, the cluelessness inextricable from the masculinity) by attempting to wrestle the messiness of life into order through hypotheses, theorems, and experiments. In recent years, we’ve seen him try to think through the crisis of modern media in Olivier Assayas’