Fallet G

Unlike a Swedish reviewer here I really liked the 'Van Veeteren' episode 'Fallet G'.

I thought the plot easy to follow but providing an interesting situation with complex motivations. Acting styles vary throughout Europe and each country's culture and national identity play a part in the way various scenarios are presented and the participants react.Northern Europeans seems less excitable than their Mediterranean counterparts and certain dramatic scenes are not necessarily marked with emotional outbursts and loud delivery - but this in no way diminishes their impact. The variety of styles from Europe enriches movie and television productions.

I like Scandanavian acting and Sven Wolter's performance as a seemingly retired bumbling old policeman with a sharp mind and driven personality is spot on in my opinion. Like Beck, Maria Wern, Irene Huss and various Danish entries, this is good entertainment.

When the Scandinavians do a great job with their more recent offerings of Noir films, the early versions were pretty terrible. The Van Veeteren series is one of these terrible versions. The acting is amateurish, the actors wear too many ill-fitting toupees, and the pace of the story is extremely slow and boring, eventually causing the viewer to lose interest in the character, story and series. I could only manage the first in the series before opting to not continue with the others. There are too many offerings out there than this to waste hours of precious viewing time.

We, my family and I, looked at this picture at home. We had prepared for a nice film evening. But - what a disappointment! The film is boring... The plot is not easy to follow. Sven Wollter who has acted in many good films seems like a rookie in this one. "Is he an amateur actor?" my 13 years old son asked. We tried to follow the film to the end, but after a while we had to turn it off. I think that Sven Wollter acts in this film only to get some money. I do not think he likes to act like he does in this picture! Well - I and the rest of my family were very disappointed with this TV-movie! One thing is for sure - I will never see another picture in the "Van Veeteren series".

/refers to all series/

Sweden is famous for crime films with different vigorous detectives - both male and female - related to a certain city or region in the country, meaning that surroundings and background has a certain role in creating the whole atmosphere, joy of recognition, desire to visit those places etc. That is why it is a bit odd that Håkan Nesser created a person with a Dutch name (Van Veeteren) acting in a fictional town called Maardam - also Dutch name - but not meant to be in Holland... The film shows pictures from Amsterdam, Tallinn, some Swedish cities, and uniforms have no signification marks, but all speak Swedish... As you see, the plate is confusing already, requiring distinguishable stories and actors... Regretfully, it is not the case here, particularly in comparison with similar Swedish series like Beck or Wallander: the pace is slow, the cast is neither good nor bad, criminal case topics are trivial and the place of Van Veeteren in later episodes is unrealistic and unnecessary...

More than mediocre, okay for killing time, but not at the level of most other Scandinavian series.