Mercy

When his hotheaded behavior gets one colleague killed and another seriously injured during a mission, Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is punitively transferred to the newly formed Special Branch Q by his superior. There he is supposed to take care of unsolved cases, which he is supposed to bring to a conclusion without much investigation. An extremely thankless task, which does not exactly distract the policeman from his heavy feelings of guilt. The fact that he is given an assistant in the form of Syrian Hafez el-Assad (Fares Fares) doesn't exactly make things any easier for the loner. And so he does what he does best: he throws himself wholeheartedly into one of the unsolved cases: the disappearance without a trace of politician Merete Lynggaard (Sonja Richter). Allegedly, she committed suicide on a passenger ferry. But Carl and Assad soon find clues that make them doubt this version. But not only the fact that their supervisor does not like it at all that the two cops leave their basement archive for the investigation again, makes the solution of this mystery to an almost unsolvable task - while Carl does not yet suspect that a dramatic race against time has just begun.

After Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy was a complete success not only as a book but also in the cinema, other thrillers from the far north are now making the leap from the bestseller lists to the big screen. Jussi Adler-Olsen's novels about the investigators Carl Mørck and Hafez el-Assad from Special Branch Q are predestined for this, as the books in this series enjoy ever-increasing popularity with each new volume. The first two volumes have already been filmed in cooperation with ZDF and the adaptation of volume 3 Redemption is already being prepared. So there is a lot of pressure for success on Mercy even before its launch. On the one hand, there are the high expectations of the numerous fans of the novel, on the other hand, there are the expectations of the production companies, who also want to lucratively exploit the next parts in the cinema. The question now is whether Mercy can meet these expectations?

Naturally, you can never tell in advance whether a film will be a commercial success. From an artistic point of view, however, it can certainly be evaluated. And there, Mercy can fully convince. Sure, the whole thing has a certain TV character and hardly differs from other Nordic thrillers that regularly make the blood run cold in the veins of TV viewers. Still, Special Branch Q's first outing works especially well in a dark movie theater, as it's here that the grisly fate of Merete Lyngaard can fully unfold its claustrophobic impact. Even those who have already read the book and thus know the outcome of the story will be spellbound here and at times literally pressed into the cinema seat with tension.

Naturally, director Mikkel Nørgaard had to make some cuts to turn the 400+ page book into a 97 minute film. This compression didn't really hurt the story, however, especially since the convoluted storytelling that takes place on two time levels was retained. Through it, the film also becomes an exciting puzzle game that doesn't have a single second of boredom to offer until the finale. You can tell that screenwriter Nikolaj Arcel, who has already turned Stieg Larsson's Blindness into a gripping screenplay, really knows his craft. Sure, the whole thing is not really innovative. Mercy is just a typical representative of a genre whose rules he follows in a rousing way without adding his own impulses. Nevertheless, the story works just really well both as a book and as a movie.

With two great lead actors, between whom the chemistry is just right, and a dense, atmospheric production, Mercy offers solid thriller entertainment that makes you want more. If this level is maintained, Mørck and Assad are welcome to investigate more often in the cinema - even if it is strictly a television production. Absolutely worth seeing

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp