Riders of Justice (2020)

I never figured out how to set my expectations for this cerebral and somewhat formally comic revenge thriller, which I found on someone’s best-of list. Made in Denmark, set in Estonia, Riders of Justice starts with the death of a woman and others in a train accident. Already it has preoccupations of fate and chaos theory and the butterfly that flappeth its wings, as we see seemingly random events leading to further random events. A comical bunch of academic data scientists is soon on board—one literally a survivor from the death train. Their high-level mathematical stochastic modeling has led them to believe this was no accident but an elaborate and premeditated murder. The widower of the woman who died, Markus (Mads Mikkelsen), is a mercenary soldier with a bad temper and deadly skills. The bumbling academics convince him to help them investigate. Markus is a stereotyped soldier of fortune whose ultra-masculinist outbursts often go too far, but he is trying to be there for his adolescent daughter even as he resists the grief therapy offered to them. He gives her boyfriend a vicious black eye the first time they meet but not long after is seen abjectly apologizing. Investigating with the academics he kills a man in a fit of rage, again humbly apologizing. “It was a mistake,” he says. I appreciated the humor but I was never entirely comfortable laughing along with his violent antics. The academics have their own psychological baggage which is played for laughs and often clever—a little bit buffoonish and a little bit unnerving. There are some nice crazy scenes embedded in this with them. Again, I appreciated the attempt at a lighter tone (in a savage key), but it was also confusing, too easy to take the cutting up as mockery of the tender processes of grief which the film itself introduces. As a revenge thriller it’s pretty good in the first half but then takes some twists and turns that make it more unbelievable and remove us from the trance of revenge satisfaction. I’m not saying that’s bad but it does frustrate expectations and didn’t seem to me to offer much in return. Matt Zoller Seitz, in a 4-star review at RogerEbert.com, might have had the best line on it, writing, “It's hard to imagine the improvisatory, digressive, character-focused filmmaker Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies) making a revenge thriller, but if he did, it might look like this.” That reminds me. I should recommend the 2012 picture The Hunt while I’m at it. It also happens to star Mads Mikkelsen and is vastly superior although not as funny. Make it a double feature.