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The third of a series of Swedish mysteries featuring small-town Police Inspector Kurt Wallander (based on the novels of Henning Mankell), this one drops the doughy, middle-aged crime solver in the midst of an international conspiracy. It all starts in South Africa, when a pro-apartheid conspirator sends a gaunt, steely-eyed former KGB assassin (icy Jesper Christensen) and a black hit man to Sweden to train for a unnamed killing. The sleepy little town gets a jolt when their hideout is destroyed in a fireball and the remains found in the ashes--a precision firearm, a sophisticated, high-powered radio, and a severed human thumb--lead Wallander back to South Africa. The scenes of beefy Nordic Wallander in a sea of black faces, appalled at the poverty and a little out of his element but always the egalitarian Swede, are among the best of the movie. Rolf Lassgård plays Wallander as a modest, amiable everyman and a dogged investigator tossed into an extreme situation, fumbling at a shootout and clumsily giving chase through frozen city streets but never shirking duty or danger. Director Pelle Berglund sets a deliberate, at times dawdling pace hampered by obscure side trips into Wallander's private life, but fills the film with a combustible conspiracy and terrific characters, notably Christensen's arrogant, icy killer and Basil Appollis's cool, charismatic South African police detective, John September.
--Sean Axmaker
Product Description
A thriller set in the south of sweden and south africa. A young woman is found brutally murdered in the swedish country-side and the small town cop whos called to investigate soon realizes hes way over his head. Strange things happen and the trace leads the investigation to russia and later to south africa. Studio: Vanguard Cinema Release Date: 11/25/2003 Starring: Rolf Lassgard Tshamano Sebe Run time: 104 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Pelle Berglund
