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Riders of Justice

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Riders of Justice
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAnders Thomas Jensen
Written byAnders Thomas Jensen
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyKasper Tuxen
Edited by
  • Anders Albjerg Kristiansen
  • Nicolaj Monberg
Music byJeppe Kaas
Distributed byNordisk Film
Release date
  • November 19, 2020 (2020-11-19)
Running time
116 minutes
CountryDenmark
LanguageDanish
Budget€5.3 million
($6.4 million)[1]
Box office$591,037[2][3]

Riders of Justice (Danish: Retfærdighedens Ryttere) is a 2020 Danish action comedy film[4][5] directed and written by Anders Thomas Jensen.[6][7] The film was released in Denmark on 19 November 2020, receiving positive reviews from critics.

Plot

In the opening scenes, in Tallinn, an old man with a white beard and his young niece are looking at a red bicycle as a possible Christmas gift. The girl says she doesn't want red but wants to wait and get a blue bicycle instead. The old man says that nothing is certain in life and Christmas is a long time away. Maybe she will get it, and maybe she won't.

The bicycle shopkeeper makes a phone call. A white van stops in front of a Danish train station where a blue bicycle is chained to a post. Two hooded men get out, cut the chain, put the bicycle into the van, and drive away.

Markus is a soldier in Afghanistan. He calls his wife, Emma, who says that their daughter's bicycle was stolen at the train station and now the family car won't start. Mother and daughter walk to the train station.

Otto and Lennart are at work presenting a worthless algorithm that they claim can be used to predict future events. Otto says that all events are products of a series of preceding events, but because we often have insufficient data, we categorize events as coincidences. Their bosses aren't impressed and fire them.

As Otto is riding the train home, he notices a tattooed man in the same car. Then he sees another man get up, throw a sandwich and drink in the trash, and exit the train. Mathilde and Emma get on the train. It is crowded, so Otto insists that Emma have his seat. The train then slams into another train which rakes the right side of the train car and kills Emma.

Markus returns home to console his grieving daughter. Mathilde and Markus find it difficult to come to terms with the tragedy, causing strain in their relationship. Mathilde thinks her father needs grief counseling, but he refuses.

Otto and Lennart approach Markus and inform him that the train accident wasn't a coincidence but was a planned murder to eliminate a key witness (the tattooed man "Eagle") who was about to give evidence against the head of the Riders of Justice motorcycle gang. Otto's hacker friend Emmenthaler uses facial recognition software to identify the suspicious man who left the train seconds before the accident as an Egyptian from Cairo. Otto and Lennart make Emmenthaler lower the threshold of the facial recognition to 95 percent and look for matches with Danish addresses. The person with the highest percentage match in Denmark is Palle Olesen. Otto says he recognizes him from the train.

Otto, Lennart, and Emmenthaler go to see Markus. Lennart is fascinated with Markus's huge barn and asks that they go there to discuss the findings. They tell Markus that Palle Olesen is the brother of Kurt "Tandem" Olesen, president of Riders of Justice, and that the tattooed man on the train who was also killed in the wreck was about to testify against him.

The group goes to Palle's house, intending to interrogate him for information about the accident, but he pulls a gun on them. They start to leave, but Markus loses control and kills Palle out of anger. Lennart enters the house to dispose of the evidence and sees a young Ukrainian boy, Bodashka, naked and gagged, but says nothing and leaves him there.

At home Mathilde and her boyfriend try to get Markus to speak to a crisis psychologist about his grief and violent behavior, but he refuses. He sees on the news that Kurt Olesen was not convicted because the witness (the Eagle) died in the train crash. Kurt says that he is sorry that his brother Palle was murdered but celebrates his acquittal anyway.

Markus summons Otto, Lennart, and Emmenthaler to the barn and tells them to get all the information they can dig up about Riders of Justice. He plans to avenge his wife. Otto agrees to get the information but says they won't kill anybody. Mathilde sees Markus and his group leaving the barn together. She recognizes Otto as the man on the train and questions her father as to who they are. Lennart lies and explains that they are actually a therapy group attempting to help her father with his trauma. Lennart offers to be Mathilde's therapist. He has seen 25 psychologists in 40 years and knows all of the terminology. Mathilde pours her heart out to him. It becomes obvious that Lennart has been sexually abused in a barn.

The Riders torture Bodashka for information, leading to their identification of Emmenthaler. The Riders attempt a drive-by shooting on Markus and his group when they go to Emmenthaler's apartment for some better computer monitors, but Markus is able to kill the attackers and rescue Bodashka who was handcuffed in the car. Markus collects all of the attackers' automatic weapons. They all return to Markus's house where they hide from the rest of the Riders of Justice who are looking for them.

Using sticky notes, Mathilde makes a timeline on her bedroom wall of events relating to her mother's death. She gradually works her way back to the day her bike was stolen at the train station. This single event seems to be first in the entire chain of events that followed.

Markus, Otto, Lennart, and Emmenthaler drive to a restaurant where they think Kurt and his associates are. Markus manages to kill Kurt and three of the men with him. Back at Markus's house, Otto sees Mathilde's wall with all of the events. He sees that it all started when her bike was stolen. If that hadn't happened, the resulting cascade of events wouldn't have happened, and her mother would be alive.

Bodashka explains to Lennart that Palle was not on the train that crashed because Palle and he were together and out of the country. Lennart and Otto had convinced Emmenthaler to accept a less accurate facial recognition result, and the suspicious man was actually an innocent Egyptian tourist who resembled Palle, meaning that their crusade against the Riders of Justice was committed in error. The evidence they relied on was a simple coincidence that two men resembled each other. Upon learning this, Markus breaks down in anger and frustration, finally lowering his stony facade and crying.

The next day, the remaining Riders use information from social media posts by Mathilde's boyfriend and attack the group at Markus's house. Some of them are injured, Mathilde is taken hostage, and Markus is disarmed by the Riders. Otto, Lennart, and Emmenthaler, using weapons training Markus gave them earlier, ambush and kill the Riders, saving Markus and Mathilde.

The movie flashes forward to Christmas, where the entire group have joined to celebrate and exchange presents. Markus and Mathilde seem to have reconciled. Her Christmas gift is a new red bicycle.

At another house, the girl from the opening scene receives Mathilde's blue bicycle as her gift from the old man with a white beard.

Cast

Reception

Box office

The movie opened to Danish cinemas on November 19, 2020, selling 150,486 tickets for the opening weekend and pre-premieres; beating out Another Round for best selling opening weekend in Denmark that year.[8]

Critical response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 94% based on 66 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "A darkly humorous revenge thriller with satisfying depth and a dash of savory quirk, Riders of Justice makes another compelling case for Mads Mikkelsen as an all-purpose leading man."[9] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of Riders of Justice out of 100, based on universal acclaim critics, indicating Error: Unrecognized metascore. Please use a number between 0 and 100..[10]

The film was met with a favorable critical response from the Danish press.[11] Politiken called Riders of Justice "Anders Thomas Jensen's best movie since Flickering Lights", giving it 5 out of 6 hearts.[12]

B.T. remarked that the movie does not have as many memorable scenes as many of Anders Thomas Jensen's previous movies, but has as significant of an emotional impact as Another Round.[13]

References

  1. ^ "Mads Mikkelsen to Headline Anders Thomas Jensen's 'Riders of Justice,' TrustNordisk to Handle Sales". 14 January 2020.
  2. ^ "Riders of Justice (2021)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  3. ^ "Riders of Justice (2021)". The Numbers. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  4. ^ "'Riders of Justice': Mads Mikkelsen in a Blood-Flecked, Philosophical Action Comedy". Creators Syndicate. 14 May 2021. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  5. ^ "Action-Comedy 'Riders Of Justice' Is More Than A Simple Shoot 'Em Up". WBUR-FM. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  6. ^ "Retfærdighedens ryttere".
  7. ^ "Retfærdighedens ryttere".
  8. ^ Leitisstein, Mariah (2020-11-26). "Sælger flere billetter end "Druk": "Retfærdighedens ryttere" er et megahit". Se og Hør (in Danish). Retrieved 2021-01-19.
  9. ^ "Riders of Justice (2020)". Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  10. ^ "Riders of Justice Reviews". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
  11. ^ Teglgaard, Stine (2020-11-18). "Anmelderne jubler: 'Retfærdighedens ryttere' er den bedste siden 'Blinkende lygter'". kino.dk (in Danish). Retrieved 2021-01-19.
  12. ^ Grundahl, Joakim (2020-11-18). "5 hjerter: Stjernespækket film er Anders Thomas Jensens bedste siden 'Blinkende lygter'". Politiken (in Danish).
  13. ^ Dam Nygaard, Kristian (2020-11-19). "Anmeldelse: Absurd sjov - men det er ikke Mads Mikkelsens skyld". B.T. (in Danish). Retrieved 2021-01-19.
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