The Keeper of Lost Causes

Carl Mørck is a Copenhagen detective left shattered by a failed operation that killed one colleague and paralysed another. Sidelined from ordinary police work, he is given a cramped basement office and a single assistant, Hafez el-Assad, and told to clear the department's unexamined old files. Instead, the pair reopen a case that was quietly shelved: Merete Lynggaard, a young politician who vanished five years earlier during a ferry crossing between Germany and Denmark. Her brother, who was travelling with her, cannot explain what happened. What begins as paperwork becomes a hunt for a suspect who stays one step ahead of them.

The film is the first feature directed by Mikkel Nørgaard, and it introduced the Department Q series, followed a year later by The Absent One. Nikolaj Arcel and Jussi Adler-Olsen wrote the screenplay, adapting Adler-Olsen's novel, and it was produced through Zentropa. Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares lead as the mismatched investigators, with Sonja Richter as the missing woman and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Søren Pilmark and Peter Plaugborg in supporting roles.

Produced on a modest budget, it returned roughly two and a half times its cost at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds a 7.2 rating from around 36,000 votes, and on TMDB a 7 from about 850 votes, while the critics' rating stands lower, at 5.9 from 27 reviews.