The Absent One (2016)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

good back-story, and good acting

A different way of telling a story

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Excellent adaptation of the book. Great casting. Please do more movies of the Department Q series!

THE ABSENT ONE is the second in the trilogy of DEPARTMENT Q films, Danish crime dramas based on novels. This Scandi-noir offering has all you'd expect from this particular genre: dark visuals, a gritty plot, a sinister back story that impinges on the present day, and some scruffy, downbeat detectives who refuse to give up the case no matter what.This film features an extensive back story involving a group of public school teenagers who get up to some dark deeds in the 1990s. It's hard-hitting and explicit stuff indeed, and the present-day storyline is just as intensive. These DEPARTMENT Q films benefit from strong production values, solid writing, good acting, and a general air of quality that makes them ones to watch for fans of the genre.

Some time has passed since Department Q's one and only successful case and now Carl and Assad feel that there is pressure on them to get results. Carl is approached by a former police officer whose children had been murdered twenty years previously; Carl refuses as the case was officially solved. The man then commits suicide so Carl feels driven to at least take a look… it isn't long before he feels that there is more to the case than immediately met the eye. Firstly the man who was jailed for the crime was defended by one of Denmark's most expensive lawyers who only works for the country's richest families and this man was hardly rich and secondly he only served a short sentence for a crime as serious as a double murder where one of the victims was raped. There is also a recording that suggests that the crime was witnessed. Carl and Assad start to try to track down this witness but it soon becomes clear that others are determined to ensure they fail. It seems highly likely that those involved were students at a prestigious boarding school but the chief suspects are now respected businessmen and before the case is over Carl and Assad will be in extreme danger.This was a solid second case for Department Q although it is obvious who was responsible from near the start; the only real question was whether they would be brought to justice and if so how. There is quite a lot of violence; much of it brutal, some of it sexual in nature, which at times makes it feel more like a horror film than a detective drama… I've certainly seen some 'infamous' horror films that were less brutal! This will probably be a bit too much for some viewers but others will feel it adds to the intensity of the drama. Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares continue to impress as Carl and Assad and Danica Curcic does a fine job as Kimmie, the witness everybody is trying to find. Pilou Asbæk and David Dencik are also on great form as two particularly unpleasant suspects. Overall I'd say that while this certainly won't be for everybody I'd recommend it to anybody who enjoyed the previous film in the series.

Straight off the bat, one of thing that I love about this film, is that it's as much of a stand alone movie as the sequel to The Keeper of Lost Causes / Mercy. The two films are connected but they're about two completely separate cases on which only the investigating team remains. It's kind of like what a TV-Show like Sherlock, for example, if Sherlock was a graphic dark thriller.Much like the first one, Detective Mørck & Assad are the heart of the movie. It's an odd pairing but they're somehow captivating, they keep you focused in the movie despite the less than original plot on this one. You probably already figured out what it's all about by reading the premise but the story works and It has to do with the investigating team. You get attached to them - more so if you've seen the first film - and you want to see this case through.The sequel to The Keeper of Lost Causes / Mercy is a good film, with a predictable story, but it's intriguing, attention-grabbing, and so uninhibited that this classical, run of the mill, thriller feels very fresh. @wornoutspines