Rick Morin: Movie Review - The Keeper Of Lost Causes

Starring: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Fares Fares, Sonja Richter, Rasmus Botoft, and Eric Ericson.
Directed by: Mikkel Nørgard

The Keeper of lost Causes is an adaptation of the best-selling crime thriller of the same name by Danish Author Jussi Adler-Olson – the novel is the first in the Department Q series 

The film’s hero is Inspector Carl Morck, a hard-drinking, heavy smoking, recently divorced, burnt-out, seen-it-all cop who is “re-assigned” to Department Q, after a homicide investigation he’s in charge of, goes tragically wrong. 

Department Q is a specially created basement office filled to the rafters with cold-case files – a police depository for hard-drinking, heavy smoking, recently divorced, burnt-out cops who are just shy of retirement. 

Morck is instructed to classify and close 20 years of cold cases with just one assistant, Assad; a smart young rookie who considers his new assignment a promotion! 

Almost immediately Morck discoveres  a five-year old file involving a female politician who allegedly committed suicide. Something doesn’t feel right about this one – he re-opens the case and so the story begins.

The Keeper of Lost Causes begins as a good-old-fashioned, film-noir murder mystery. However, the story’s who-done-it status ends abruptly thanks to a series of flash-back spoilers showing us that the woman Morck believes was murdered is in fact alive, but clearly not well: for the past five years a deranged individual has been holding her captive in a pressurized hyperbaric prison at a secret location … but why? 

 A big part of this movie’s appeal is watching Morck and Assad carry out what they initially believe to be a murder investigation, which of course it isn’t … at least not yet. It’s a race against time but there are no fast-taking CSI lab boffins with magic computers to help solve this case - only old-school policing.

The Keeper of Lost Causes is an engaging thriller. The acting is spot on and the screenplay nicely crafted thanks to Nikolaj Arcel who scripted The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Don’t be surprised if The Keeper of Lost Causes eventually ends up being remade by  the Hollywood cinematic sausage factory, starring all the usual suspects. But I would urge you to see the Danish language version before that happens!