The Dogs of Riga

The first international case for Branagh's Wallander sees him travel to Latvia to investigate corruption and drug smuggling. The Dogs of Riga is arguably my least favourite of Mankell's novels, and arguably one of the best of the BBC's adaptations, I'd go so far as to say I prefer this to the original book. It's a gripping, action packed story, which moves along at a racing pace, twisting and turning, ultimately rewarding the viewer. I like the overhang from the previous episode, Vanja seems to have dumped him, and Kurt is still not coping with the plight of Anne Britt.

Superb production values as always, the scenery is glorious, Riga looked incredible in some scenes, the location filming gave the episode a very different flavour. Some excellent performances, Søren Malling stole the early scenes, a true match for Branagh, Zoltan Butuc, Arturs skrastins and Radoslaw Kaim were also very, very good as the main players.

Compelling viewing. 9/10

I read all of Mankell's Wallander books and "Dogs of Riga" was a pretty good one (although not his best), describing the state of Latvia and its connections to Sweden in the early 90s very well.

Now this film takes the book, presents basically the same story in 2011 (or 2012), and fails miserably. It seems that the author forgot that Latvia has gone through enormous changes in the last 20 years. These are very well captured in the pictures (Riga would have been a much more gray and gloomy place in 1992!) but the story is not at all believable any more now, after the Baltic states have been part of the EU for almost 10 years.

Additionally, the seasons kept changing wildly throughout the film (it starts with snowflakes in Sweden, then it is obviously summer in Riga, in between the fields in Sweden are green).

Finally, the only connection to the previous episode was Ann-Britt in hospital, Wallanders previous live-with woman was never even mentioned.

Two men are found brutally killed, floating in a raft. A policeman from Latvia comes to assist in the investigation. It appears that the Russians have had a hand in this, probably the mafia. Shortly after the man leaves, Kurt finds that he has been killed. He decides to assist in the investigation of the death. When he gets to Riga, he is somehow being targeted by forces that are hard to interpret. He becomes involved with the widow of the murdered policeman. The two are pursued at times and realize that Kurt somehow has been given access to damning evidence. We get to see Wallander once again on the hunt, but he begins to feel something for the beautiful widow. This is a good episode because it keeps one guessing. I thought this was the best of the Mankell books as well. It's entertaining because our boy can't figure out if he is really in over his head or just dealing with local issues.

Maddening how many poor decisions made by a supposedly experienced cop. So many lapses in rational protocol. Puts himself and others in danger and expects to get serious after the fact.

Wallander being out of his comfort zone and away from the safety and protection of his own police force in Sweden really adds to the tension in this episode. I don't think I'd be too happy if I was a Latvian police officer at the inference of collusion with criminal gangs and rampant corruption to the highest levels of the force though. Also it wasn't really explained why Wallander had to break into police HQ to retrieve the investigation file when he had a scan of it on the digital camera? What was in the file that wasn't on the camera? Who was the sniper that killed Putnis? Overall an excellent episode though.