Since I work in a video store I get to watch a lot of film, both good and bad. I'm also pretty keen on Swedish cop-flicks but are often compelled by the absence of realism in this genre. The Swedish film industry is very interesting since there's many profound traditions, many of which I don't like at all. For instance, one of the traditions is that a majority of the speaking parts often (or pretty much in all cases) speak the so called 'rikssvenska', the typical Swedish dialect, spoken in and around our capital of Stockholm. This verbal tradition derives from the acting stages such as Kungliga Dramaten, the Royal Dramatic Theatre. Thus, the problem with the majority of Swedish films is that they are created and directed from this Dramaten tradition. Which, I mean, does work excellent on stage, but not on film.
The series Wallander is a great example of this conflict. The character Wallander is a cop in the south-est of Sweden, where most people speak a southern Swedish dialect. Almost none of the cast in this series does speak this dialect. They speak, of course, 'rikssvenska'. This makes much of the realism disappear. Unfortunately, I must say.
The cop, Kurt Wallander, is a construct of Swedish crime novel writer Henning Mankell and he's written about a dozen novels which I think are very good indeed. The capture crime and suspense in a good way in a little southern Swedish town and its surroundings.
This episode, "Bröderna" (Brothers) is a part of a newly written, free-standing series only based on the characters and the setting from the novels by Henning Mankell. Thirteen episodes are planned and this is the second. In short, this is about a couple of noble citizens victimized with no apparent connection. All this, when the army carries out a drill in the vicinity.
It's a pretty ordinary plot, which I am sure to have seen it's likes many times before. Carried out in a decent way. Characters and setting was also pretty standard.
