Contempt

Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is disappointed: his longtime partner Hafez el-Assad (Fares Fares), who is also one of the few people Carl trusts absolutely, wants to leave Special Squad Q. He has to leave his new job. In just a few days, he will start his new job. And since Carl can't tell him what he really thinks, he simply punishes his colleague with disrespect. Not a good way to solve a really tricky case: A bricked-up room has been discovered in an apartment, with three mummified corpses sitting at a set table. There's a fourth vacant seat. So it seems the killer is still on the hunt for his fourth victim. The investigation leads the team to an asylum on the island of Sprogø where many years ago mentally ill and socially unfit women were allegedly imprisoned, abused and eventually forcibly sterilized. It's a horrific story - one that still isn't over.

Contempt is now the fourth film based on the Special Q novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Along with the first installment, Mercy, this thriller based on true events is the best film in the series so far. What took place behind the walls of the asylum on the island of Sprogø is one of the very dark chapters in the history of Denmark. The plot line, set on the island in the 1950s and highlighting the events there, is one of the most intense moments in the series. It's gritty, disturbing and just plain infuriating.

Skillfully, this strand is interwoven with the current investigations of Mørck and Assad. In the process, director Christoffer Boe also does a very good job of incidentally developing the familiar characters and their relationship to each other. Especially Mørck goes through a development until the end, which could do his character some good. The private aspects, however, are rather secondary, because the focus is a particularly intense vendetta, which then also takes on surprisingly topical socio-political features.

For almost two hours, Contempt offers gripping thriller entertainment in a class of its own. If you liked the first three films, you'll be thrilled with this one as well. However, there is also a small drop of bitterness: 2020 is the next case of the special department Q in the cinemas, but probably with a new cast. Ulrich Thomsen and Zaki Youssef will take the helm. Two very good actors - but it is still a pity that Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares will not be seen further as Mørck and Assad. Not least because of that, but of course also because their farewell performance turned out to be a really good film, the following applies: absolutely worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp