The Dogs of Riga (16 Sep. 2012)

The discovery of two slain youths in a dinghy which washes into Ystad brings hard-drinking Latvian detective Karlis Liepa from Riga. He tells Wallander they were his informants in a ... See full summary »

Director:

Esther Campbell

Writers:

Peter Harness, Henning Mankell (novel)

Stars:

Ciarán Owens, Jim Bywater, Kenneth Branagh

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Ciarán Owens	...	Erik Jacobsen
Jim Bywater	...	Jan Holmgren
Kenneth Branagh	...	Kurt Wallander
Sarah Smart	...	Anne-Britt Hoglund
Richard McCabe	...	Nyberg
Barnaby Kay	...	Lennart Mattson
Mark Hadfield	...	Stefan Lindeman
Søren Malling	...	Karlis Liepa
Rebekah Staton	...	Kristina Albinsson
Radoslaw Kaim	...	Zids
Ingeborga Dapkunaite	...	Baiba Liepa
Arturs Skrastins	...	Putnis
Zoltan Butuc	...	Murnieks
Arvydas Dapsys	...	Bekalov
Anamaria Marinca	...	Inese

Storyline

The discovery of two slain youths in a dinghy which washes into Ystad brings hard-drinking Latvian detective Karlis Liepa from Riga. He tells Wallander they were his informants in a drug-smuggling ring after the dinghy,containing cocaine,is stolen. Liepa is murdered on his return home,Wallander travelling to Riga to learn that the secretive detective did not show his case notes to his colleagues.After Wallander has discovered that his hotel room is bugged and he is being shadowed journalist Sergei Upitis tells him that Liepa was investigating corruption in his own force but Upitis is framed for Liepa's murder and found hanged in his cell,the Riga police then closing the case. However,Wallander,working with Liepa's widow Baiba and her cousin Inese,locate the missing case notes to unmask the traitor in the Latvian force.

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Genres:

Crime | Thriller

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Details

Release Date:

16 September 2012 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Riga, Latvia

Company Credits

User Reviews

Weird mix of 90s story with 201x Riga

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.