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(Release Info UK schedule, July 20th, 2021, Picturehouse Bromley, 242 High St, Bromley BR1 1NZ, United Kingdom, ● 19:45)
https://www.picturehouses.com/movie-details/000/HO00010884/riders-of-justice
"Riders Of Justice"
"Riders Of Justice" follows recently-deployed Markus (Mad Mikkelsen), who's forced to return home to care for his teenage daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg) after his wife Emma (Anne Birgitte Lind) is killed in a tragic train accident. But when a survivor of the wrecked train surfaces claiming foul play, Markus begins to suspect his wife was murdered and embarks on a mission to find those responsible. The film starts with a series of sad events, a stolen bike, dismissal, a train accident. Coincidence or a causal link? Data analyst Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) examines the matter aided by his eccentric colleague Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and their even stranger friend Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro). Together with professional soldier Markus, the men develop into angels of wrath. When Otto suggests the deadly accident was really something more sinister, his certainty sets Markus on the path to revenge against biker gang, The mission leads to results, though perhaps not the intended ones.
"Riders Of Justice" is a fable, set in a framework of realism. It's the tale of a group of people all of whom, on the same day, lose their sense of security as well as their lives foundation. In meeting each other they eventually respectively find: love, self-respect, trust and the feeling of belonging to a place. Everyone ends up experiencing a kind of trust, whether that's in themselves, in 'God' or in life’s coincidences. In "Riders Of Justice" there's also a lot of serendipity. A group of hurt people come together and along the way they help heal each other. Markus is a wounded animal, who would prefer to go into hiding. Life has exhausted his faith and deprived him of his youthful naivety. He has lost his hopes and dreams of having a big family around him. But coincidences, the accident, gives him what he desired as a young man, albeit in a completely different way. And maybe it isn’t coincidences, perhaps it's 'God', or something else entirely. The film creates a drama with both touching moments and humour, which unfolds around a father and daughter, Markus and Mathilde. We stay with them in the extreme situation they find themselves in following the sudden loss of their wife/mother.
"Riders Of Justice" depicts how our lives are affected when the unthinkable occurs. How do we keep our faith in life, when we no longer believe in anything? Life can seem utterly meaningless, especially when we lose our loved ones. But is there any pivotal reason why we should fully understand the point of it all? Is it not so, that if we accept, we will never understand death, then being present, grateful and among those we love, is the most meaning we can aspire to in life? And is that in itself not enough?.Accepting that all around us, even our very existence, is solely governed by chance, is a tough realization. Because if everything is random, it can be argued, that everything is also irrelevant. And irrelevant is not far from meaningless. But perhaps everything isn’t all together random. Humans are pack animals, we're meant to gather and the more we dare to devote ourselves to each other, the more significant and fuller our lives will be. The film's bone-dry humour and inimitable logic makes it another absurdist, yet educational and moving highlight in 'Danish' cinema. It's a cocktail of uproarious black comedy and shocking violence. A moving tale of the quest to mend broken lives. The core of the story is pretty dark and serious. The underlying theme is quite monumental. The meaning of life. That kind of subject matter is daunting. It has to be communicated with humour, otherwise it's hard to cope with the gravity of it.
