Den som dræber

Until recently we never saw television programmes that weren't in English; then BBC4 started airing the Swedish police show 'Wallander' after its success is wasn't long before they followed it up with programmes from France, Denmark and Italy; all in the native language and English subtitles. It was only a matter of time before another channel started to showing something from the continent; the channel was ITV3 and the programme was the Danish murder mystery 'Those Who Kill'. Originally shown as ten episodes featuring five two part stories the episodes were combines to make five feature length episodes; probably a wise move as the two hour crime drama is the standard format here.

This series follows the activities of a murder squad whose cases inevitably turn out to involve serial killers. The squad is led by Magnus Bisgaard although the main characters are Katrine Ries Jensen and civilian profiler Thomas Schaeffer. No matter what the case it is a safe bet that one of our protagonists will end up in mortal danger only for them to turn the tables on the bad guy. While the cases are fairly standard for this type of drama they were still enjoyable and while I didn't really expect the protagonists to come to any harm there were plenty of tense moments. Lead actors Laura Bach and Jakob Cedergren performed well in the roles of Katrine and Thomas and the rest of the cast seemed to do well too; although I can't comment on how their accents fitted the roles as I was relying on the subtitles and wouldn't have spotted if somebody sounded wrong! Overall I'm glad I watched this series; it might not have been one of the best continental series I've seen but it was still entertaining; its a pity further series weren't made.

Finished watching the only season of this Danish TV serial which is being remade for US right now. Every episode is almost 1.5 hrs, characters are same but every episode comes up with a new serial killer to analysis and catch. A female lead detective pairs with a talented but problematic forensic psychiatrist to catch these killers. They all have their share of personal problems to handle. Katrine(Detective) has been abused as a child by her stepfather and Thomas(FP) always grasping to retain balance between his work or job that he desires and his family.

Now the stories. Every serial killer is different, everyone has their own way of thinking and different way of killing. Thomas analysis the methodology of the killer in his own way, links up the puzzles that help Katrine catch the killer. Some stories are brilliant, some are average, but overall there were lots of excitement and intelligent stuff. After watching so many hightech series some might seem quite amateurish but actually they are not. Ratings might not seem that much convincing but its not as bad as rating says.

There's one more thing. I know the Scandinavians were amongst the first to give women empowerment but three Scandinavian serial killing TV series I watched and all three of them has the female lead protagonist. I am not being misogynist or against women empowerment rather the opposite, but sometimes it feels a bit cliché. I love Scandinavian crime production and I can't but to be partial!

Overall my rating: 8/10

The creators of Den som dræber were apparently willing to combine CSI- type and Mentalist-type of series, but mind-twisting together with genuine slides of malformed dead bodies, villains are serial killers only, and not-so-catchy main characters (Laura Bach as Katrine Ries Jensen and Jakob Cedergren as Thomas Schaeffer) have not attracted so much popularity as e.g. Forbrydelsen, Broen or Ørnen: En krimi-odyssé. True, there are some fine performances - Lars Mikkelsen in all the episodes and Ulrich Thomsen and Kim Bodnia both in 2 episodes, but the overall pace is sometimes uneven, sometimes protracted; there are 5 different stories over 2 episodes each, and the 1st part of every story includes a summary what will happen in the second episode - annoying for a crime drama where moments of surprise carry a significant weight.

All in all, the series in question is not bad, but it is definitely overshadowed by the series mentioned above. So if you have/need a choice, you better watch the others.

Bit apprehensive at first to watch a movie with subtitles again but these type of movies/series you really need to watch in it's original language (its actually fun trying to understand words, you'll be surprised how much you'll actually pickup). It's a very good series, believable in many ways. There are nut cases out there indeed, maybe not as sophisticated as these in the series but it's filmed in a believable way. It's not about all guns blazing, it's about characters, mistakes, reality which is what makes this so good. If you're after action, car chases, explosions, machine gun fire, you're in the wrong place. If you like mystery, bit of love, bit of human relations, bit of thriller, watch it. It's not a 10 as I think there is some acting that could be improved on and maybe conclusions are sometimes a bit far fetched/too easy found, but a 9 is pretty damn high I would think.

Recommended and indeed gifted to me by my brother, "Those Who Kill" is another Nordic Noir series putting together a male and female lead to hunt down serial killers in Denmark.

I've just watched the first episode bringing together Katrine Jensen, a young, rebellious and ambitious detective and an outside profiler turned lecturer, Thomas Schaeffer, with unsatisfactory experience of working with Katrine's Super on previous cases. I can't think why, when in this episode, one relatively minor mistake apart, he uses his instincts to track down the murderer just in time to rescue Katrine from his clutches.

The man/woman detective duo fronting the show isn't original, especially in this field neither is the plotting which sees the killer victimising, breaking down and torturing his female prey and Katrine then quickly becoming his next target. The visual style is hardly different from its predecessors either with grisly crime scenes and the pitting of wits between good and evil filmed in a grey, grimy backdrop.

I found the story rather raced to its conclusion and took too many giant leaps in the continuity process with some unaccountable actions by all the major participants. That said, if was grittily realistic and reasonably gripping throughout. I'm sort of hoping there will be no romantic entanglement between the two leads to distract from the detective work although to be fair, this didn't happen in "The Killing" or "The Bridge". I like that the leads too seem to have less "strange cargo" to carry too. I don't mind a bit if background shading but really just want to watch a thrilling mystery show without the sometimes obligatory emotional baggage.

I've the rest of the first series to watch and will do so soon, going by what I saw here.