Markus, who has to go home to his teenage daughter, Mathilde, when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. It seems like an accident until a mathematics geek, who was also a fellow passenger on the train, and his two colleagues show up.
At first, “Riders of Justice” appears like a straightforward revenge flick. Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) is recently deployed and serving in the military overseas when he receives news that his wife Emma (Anne Birgitte Lind) and daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg) were involved in a terrible train accident back in Denmark. He returns home but soon after is informed by Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a passenger who was on the train with Emma and Mathilde, that it was not an accident, and upon further investigation, discovers that a former member of a violent criminal gang, the Riders of Justice, who was set to testify against the leader of the gang in an upcoming trial, was also on the train and targeted for murder. The “accident” now appears to exhibit the trademark appearance of sabotage, with Markus’s wife merely collateral damage. Markus gathers the information about the gang and goes after each of them, one by one.
That could be one way of summarizing “Riders of Justice” but there is more to it than that. We discover that Otto, a theoretical scientist, and mathematics geek, offered his seat to Emma, who, at first, was reluctant to accept it but eventually welcomed his kind gesture. Immediately after, part the train exploded and Emma, who just happened to be sitting in the explosion’s way, was instantly killed. Otto feels guilty for her death and is convinced that the explosion was no accident and with the help of his two best friends, Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro), convinces Markus that it was a carefully orchestrated assassination.
The three friends, Otto (at times the spitting image of Seth Rogen), Lennart, and Emmenthaler, are conspiracy theorists and much like The Lone Gunmen in “The X-Files,” are quirky and, at times, unconventional in their methods but when they come together, their theories and assumptions are pretty much conclusive. One by one, they help Markus track down the gang members of the Riders of Justice and he alone administers his own form of retribution. Along the way, Markus’s daughter Mathilde joins the cause, much to his intransigent stance that she not be involved but they both realize it is a way to deal with their individual grief and a way to help mend their estranged relationship. Mathilde’s boyfriend Sirius (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt) unwittingly becomes a part of the group as does a young male prostitute, Bodashka (Gustav Lindh), who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as Markus was dispensing his form of justice. Tied up and gagged, Markus is afraid that Bodashka could place him at the scene of the crime but because he is innocent, he takes him back to his house where he becomes a part of the group.
While there is a lot of violence throughout, there are also tender moments between various characters. While Mads Mikkelsen’s Markus is most certainly the film’s protagonist, the rest of the group each gets enough character exposition so that they are not just relegated to the background and then called upon when the script demands it, they each have a story to tell and director Anders Thomas Jensen gives them the necessary screen time to expand on their essential purpose to the movie. Markus is emotionally fenced off, a man who has never had to deal with the kind of emotions he is now presented with, and it is obvious that his late wife Emma was the voice of reason within the family so watching him and Mathilde try to unite, is, at times, heartbreaking. Markus slowly transitions into a modern-day Paul Kersey, exacting revenge on the people who took away his reason for living, and because he is a highly trained soldier, killing comes naturally to him. Later in the film, there is a twist that explains that in the beginning, Otto might have incorrectly identified the man whom he suspected was responsible for blowing up the train, and Markus, overcome with grief at the thought of killing an innocent man, uncontrollably breaks down. Shortly after, however, he learns that the man he killed was most definitely a member of the Riders of Justice who had killed many an innocent person so his grief is short-lived.
“Riders of Justice” deals with the unexpected loss of a loved one and how a stoic man such as Markus, a soldier who says very little and shows even less emotion, has to come to terms with immeasurable catastrophe, while also trying to break down the walls of alienation with his headstrong daughter. Each member of the group is emotionally damaged, and the movie is not afraid to display their weaknesses to each other, it actually helps them understand and appreciate one another and forces them to become stronger, individually, and as a collective. “Riders of Justice” is a rare film that combines several different genres, action, thriller, and drama, and compounds them together successfully without the film ever feeling forced or contrived. Mads Mikkelsen has proven himself to be a truly versatile actor, one whose range is matched only by his artistic choices in projects, and here he does not disappoint. Markus is a force to be reckoned with and he will stop at nothing to protect his daughter, as strained as their relationship is, because he knows he must overcome that obstacle in order for them to be able to move forward with their lives.
In Theaters in NY and LA on Friday, May 14th and Nationwide on Friday, May 21st
