Roslund & Hellström: Box 21

I am Scandinavian & obviously into all Nordic noir. One of the best I have seen and am waiting desperately for serie 2.

... overall, it got saved a bit by the last couple episodes, but just a bit... were it a decent feature movie length, it would have been sooo much better... way it is now, at well over four hours is just excessive for the story... acting, production values-scenery are fairly decent... it's a lot the writing throws all things off

... some of the twists and turns are inventive, especially the final ninety minutes or so, but on their own cannot carry a plot-story too drawn out for time extended... most of the reviewers are more positive than deserved, but that's what makes some of these Euro-productions more interesting-watchable.

Firstly the user that gave it tens stars has one review in their IMDB history, meaning they are probably in some way affiliated with this production. I'l keep it short: I'm a fan of Scandinavian noir police procedurals. But at this point a fair LOT of total garbage is being made in this genre and this is a perfect example. The acting is just unbelievably bad. so is the script dialogue and plot. Worst of all it deploys the same tropes and spot cliches that are becoming utterly tedious in the genre: Immigrant victim? Check. Lots of didactic moralizing? check. Ending plot twist to wrap everything in a bow, but is insulting to intelligence of audience? Check.

Wallander, The Bridge, The Killing, Borgen. Scandinavia has given us some excellent drama series. Sadly, however, a slew of rubbish shows has followed in their wake. This one is typical. Predictable, under produced, under scripted with two dimensional stereotypes. Motivations, actions and scripts have huge gaps. Conversations which would have been had are simply not there. Disappointed.

After watching the trailer and reading reviews I was very skeptical at watching this series. So I just put it on my long waiting list of potential series to watch for a long time. But today I needed something without too many episodes to be able to binge the whole thing in just one night. I also felt like watching a scandinavian crime serie. And since I have seen most scandinavian series there was not that many series that fitted all criterias that I havent already seen so I decided to give it a shot, very prepared to exit if I didnt like it.

And I am very glad I did. I think this is surprisingly one of the better series in this genre. It is not a masterpiece like "The bridge" or "Before we die". But it is a very good and intense thriller with characters that you care for. All technical aspects are great and very cinematic, and the casting is very good. And it has a great story with some twists that you might not see coming even if you think you have figured it all out. And as a bonus you might also learn something about some social and criminal issues.

I cant understand where all the reviews that rates it below average come from. Please ignore those and give it a try. My best guess would be that some of those reviews come from people who can't deal with the series taking twists and turns that you would not see in many american series that are sanitized to death to not upset anyone. Sometimes those twists mean that the story does not end very happy for everyone in the story. But the very fact that its unpredictable make it much more thrilling cause you are never sure of what its capable of doing. So give it a go. If you like scandinavian or european crime series I am pretty sure you will like this.