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Riders of Justice
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Wikipedia article
'Riders of Justice' is a 2020 Danish action comedy film directed and written by Anders Thomas Jensen. The film was released in Denmark on 19 November 2020, receiving positive reviews from critics.
Plot
In Tallinn, an elderly priest and niece are looking at a red bicycle as a possible Christmas gift. The girl says she wants to wait and get a blue bicycle instead. The shopkeeper makes a phone call. A van stops in front of a train station where a blue bicycle is chained to a post. Men 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 their daughter Mathilde's bicycle was stolen at the station and the family car won't start. Emma and Mathilde walk to the station.
Otto and Lennart are at work presenting a worthless algorithm they claim can be used to predict future events. Otto says all events are products 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. He sees another man get up, throw a sandwich and drink in the trash, and exit the train. Mathilde and Emma get on. Otto insists Emma have his seat. The train crashes which rakes the right side 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 counseling, but he refuses.
Otto goes to the police, stating the accident was actually planned. The police dismiss his thoughts on the accident. Otto and Lennart track down Markus to inform him the accident wasn't a coincidence, but a murder to eliminate a witness about to give evidence against the head of the Riders of Justice gang. Otto's 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 facial recognition to 95 percent and look for matches with Danish addresses. The person with the highest match in Denmark is Palle Olesen. Otto recognizes him from the train.
Otto, Lennart and Emmenthaler go to see Markus. Lennart is fascinated with Markus's huge barn. They tell Markus that Palle Olesen is the brother of Kurt, president of Riders of Justice, and the tattooed man on the train who was also killed 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. Markus loses control and kills Palle. Lennart enters the house to dispose of the evidence and sees a young Ukrainian, Bodashka, naked and gagged, but says nothing and leaves him there.
Mathilde and her boyfriend try to get Markus to speak to a psychologist about his grief and violent behavior, but he refuses. He sees on the news that Kurt Olesen was not convicted because the witness died in the train crash.
Markus summons Otto, Lennart, and Emmenthaler to the barn and tells them to get all the information they can about Riders of Justice. He plans to avenge his wife. Otto agrees 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 says they are a therapy group helping her father with his trauma. Lennart offers to be Mathilde's therapist, Mathilde agrees. It becomes obvious Lennart was sexually abused in a barn in his childhood.
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, but Markus is able to kill the attackers and rescue Bodashka. Markus collects 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. Mathilde has been making 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.
Markus, Otto, Lennart, and Emmenthaler drive to a restaurant where Kurt and his associates are. Markus manages to kill Kurt and three men with him. Otto sees Mathilde's wall with all of the events. He sees that it all started when her bike was stolen. He explains to her that there is an infinite number of moments that led to the crash and trying to find one reason to explain it is fruitless.
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 their crusade against the Riders of Justice was in error. The evidence they relied on was a coincidence that two men resembled each other. Markus breaks down in anger and frustration, finally lowering his stony facade and crying.
The remaining Riders use information from social media posts by Mathilde's boyfriend and attack the group at Markus's house. Mathilde is taken hostage, and Markus disarmed by the Riders. Otto, Lennart, and Emmenthaler, using weapon training Markus gave them earlier, ambush and kill the Riders, saving Markus and Mathilde.
The movie flashes forward to Christmas, when the group have joined to celebrate and exchange presents. Markus and Mathilde have reconciled. Her Christmas gift is a new red bicycle. At another house, the niece from the opening scene receives Mathilde's blue bicycle as her Christmas gift from the priest.
Cast
*Mads Mikkelsen as Markus Hansen
*Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Otto Hoffmann
*Andrea Heick Gadeberg as Mathilde Hansen
*Lars Brygmann as Lennart
*Nicolas Bro as Emmenthaler
*Gustav Lindh as Bodashka
*Roland Mller as Kurt
* as Sirius
*Anne Birgitte Lind as Emma Hansen
* as Palle Olesen / Aharon Nahas Shadid
* as Kenneth
*Henrik Nol Olesen as Noah
*Gustav Dyekjr Giese as Adrian
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.
Critical response
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . 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."The film was met with a favorable critical response from the Danish press. 'Politiken' called 'Riders of Justice' "Anders Thomas Jensen's best movie since 'Flickering Lights'", giving it 5 out of 6 hearts.
'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'.
References
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